mark
My guess for mark : derived from an old accounting method of marks on sticks or paper.
Re: Symantec pulls an NAI
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote : http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/23057.html Eric Chien, chief researcher at Symantec's antivirus research lab, said that provided a hypothetical keystroke logging tool was used only by the FBI, then Symantec would avoid updating its antivirus tools to detect such a Trojan. The security firm is yet to hear back from the FBI on its enquiries about Magic Lantern but it already has a policy on the matter. Looks like a trend... Could you be more specific? Do you mean that this is a new trend or simply and old trend and a new ( and very limited ) bit of daylight? Mike
Re: CDR: Antivirus software will ignore FBI spyware: solutions
Sunder [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote : Great and wonderful except: 1. If such spyware has already been installed on your system you can't trust your os therefore: [snip] Yes - end of story. 2. Any hard drive you can access so can they. They can patch your disk: [snip] The only way I can think of to prevent this is to have the disk completely encrypted in which case you could safely give a copy to anyone who wanted one. The BIOS shouldn't be trusted either. The problem then is booting which could be done from some sort of card/dongle that you carry with you that requires a (many digit)PIN before it regurgitates your boot code. 3. Newer G3+ Mac's use open boot prom or some such which lives in eeprom. Such things can be patched at that layer and can propagate on bootup. Booting off a read only disk (CDROM, etc) wouldn't help in this case. Yup. Maybe a bootFLASH can be replaced with some SRAM which must be downloaded from your key device before booting. Something like : power up, hold processor in reset, remove boot SRAM from bus, load boot code, switch boot memory to system bus, allow startup. 4. If you live in a crowded area, your iPod can be lifted off you in a false mugging, or break in, pick pocketting while you're at a restaurant, movie, etc. A physical device plus a PIN seems somewhat immune to that problem. In fact you could keep multiple copies. 5. Watching for files that change daily is a fool's task for the reasons mentioned above, and the Sysiphean task it presents. Better get the equivalent of Cops or Tripwire to do the work for you, but they too can be tampered with. Mostly. 6. If McAffee bent over to the Feds, you can be sure that so will the makers of Zone Alarm and other firewalls. Probably anything that is exported and some that aren't. 7. Remember, they don't need to capture all your keystrokes. Just the ones you use as passphrases. And they don't need to copy your whole hard drive, though they easily could when you're out of the house. Just your secret key file and your passphrase. 8. If you shut off your computer when you leave your house, it makes their job that much easier. If you leave it on, they could note what's open and put it back to the same spot. Not if there is no code in the clear on the machine - no functional BIOS, no usable HDD. 9. If you use a login screen, etc, Or they could simply run something that would take a snapshot of your desktop, shutdown your Mac, install the malware/copy your files, then and boot off of a floppy that displays the screen you left up, plus a Type 1 Bomb (MacOS equivalent of blue screen of death), and eject the floppy thus - making it look like your Mac crashed, or, simply go down to the basement and trip your circuit breakers making it look like you've had a power failure (even UPS's run out at some point.) With the BIOS and HDD encrypted off is safe. Might be a neat little gizmo with a keypad. BIOS is encrypted on the motherboard. Boot memory is SRAM that is lost when power is removed ( lost short of extreme detection measures that is ). The little gizmo reads the encrypted BIOS, decrypts and transfers it to boot SRAM. 10. Ordered any new copies of a bit of software? Maybe they have a deal with FedEx, UPS, the Mailman. Maybe what you're getting is the upgrade and then some. How can you tell that copy of SmallTalk doesn't carry an extra bit of code just for you? How can you tell that the latest patch to MacOS you've just downloaded really came from Apple? Sure DNS said it was from ftp.apple.com but how do you know that the router upstream from your internet provider didn't route your packets via ftp.fbi.gov? Once they have physical access, you're fucked. Remote access is almost as dangerous as them having physical access, however it can work in your favor as they won't be as familiar with your environment, and thus are far more likely to expose the malware to you. Sure, all of these things are more or less preventable, except for physical access, and a lot of these come down to trust and reputation. But reputation and trust are also rubber hose-able (if there is such a word.) :) You can trust your best friend until you find out otherwise. You can trust your bank until you find out otherwise. You can trust your software provider until you find out otherwise. But by the time you've found out, if you've found out at all, you've already been fucked. Maybe just installing an OS you got as a binary is all it takes to be F'd. Maybe rebuilding that OS with an F'd compiler propagates the effedness. If you have everything encrypted until your key device readies it for boot then you could run a F'd BIOS, OS and apps as long as you kept the system isolated. Let it log all it wants. Sounds like a good sentence for a Windows box. Mike
Re: HOWTO Build a Nuclear Device
!Dr. Joe Baptista [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote : Where did this bullshit come from? Did someone take a ravioli recipe and do some search and replace? Is Dr. Joe Baptista really Jim Choate in disguise? My favorite short quote : The trick is to bring the U-235 masses together at the same time. I'm slow, I know, so I'm still trying to figure out how to do it any other way when you have only two pieces. Could someone help me understand this part of the design? I would have to say, though, that my absolute favorite part is where one starts with a supercritical mass and subsequently divides it into two equal parts in order to prepare the device. ROTFL. Anyone gonna post fast neutron cross-section data for Pu and U isotopes? M One thing that is bothering me these days are all the reports coming out of Afganistan that nuclear bomb making plans were found. Big deal. Anyone on the planet can make a nuclear device if they have the appropriate materials. The hard part is staying alive due to exposure while manufacturing the device. If however death is not an issue then the process itself becomes easy to accomplish. Materials - 4 stainless steal salad bowls (5 - 8 inch diameter) 10 pounds of U-235 (Plutonium) 1 containment cylinder in which to fit the salad bowls ? some explosives - C4 platic works best - but TNT or gun powder is acceptable. Assembly 10 pounds of U-235 is required to achive critical mass. However less will work but you will get a sub critical mass on detonation. The difference is taking out an entire city as opposed to a few city blocks. Divide the U-235 into two five pound masses. Beat it evenly into the inside of one of your salad bowls. U-235 is malleable like gold so you should have no problem shaping it. Do the same with the other U-235 mass and shape it into the other salad bowl. Keep the two bowls apart - you don't want an accident to cause your project to go critical. C4 explosives work best. You simply mold the C4 into the other two salad bowls. This is the most dangerous part of the project. Improper handling of C4 can cause an explosion. But gun powder is just as effective. Now fit the U-235 salad bowls into the C4 salad bowls and place them at each end of the cylindrical containment. Connect your explosives to a detonator and close off the ends of the cylynder. Make sure the detonator sets off both explosives at the same time. The trick is to bring the U-235 masses together at the same time. And thats it. I would recommend some form of protection while building the project. The aprons worn by dentists will work. They will protect you to some degree from radioactive poisoning. However - your life is only being prolonged by taking such measures - you still will end up dead due to the U-235 radiation regardless of what you do. And thats it. Conclusion -- Anyone on this planet can build a nuclear device. So the only issue in building the device is the will to die for a cause. And the only thing I find unfortunate in all of this is that there are so many causes that people are willing to die for. And war will not make those reasons go away - it will only encourage them. regards joe baptista
PALS : renaming DC CP
True. The DC cypherpunks are thinking of changing their name to something more cuddly. Harmless Little Nerds? Cryptotubbies? Happy Fun Infosec Society? Much too 1990s. These times suit more loyal-sounding names. Programmers Rally Against Terrorism? Programmer's Association for Liberty Services
Virtual Bhurkas ( was : Re: Nuclear Pipe Bombs )
Ken Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote : 1) I thought spherical shells were the usual geometry? 2) It sure as hell looks like it's time to start creating private archives of public data and seeing to it that the data are propagated. Sneakernet revisited only now with CD's instead of floppies. Shit. If the UK government passes this law they are proposing then this email would probably count as illegal. And anonymous postings are often so tedious. 3) Time for ideas to don a bhurka before they go out in the street, to meet in secret places, to avoid the eyes and ears of Mullahs Ashcroft and Blair.
Re: Cypherpunk failures
Roy M. Silvernail [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote : On 19 Nov 2001, at 19:43, Ken Brown wrote: Much too 1990s. These times suit more loyal-sounding names. Programmers Rally Against Terrorism? I wonder how many non-Brits will get this... -- Roy M. Silvernail Proprietor, scytale.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] Oh, I get it OK, it just doesn't sound cuddly.
Re: Soldiers Celebrate with executions
Golly gee willikers, you mean it's not all beard-shaving, turban-tossing, music and dancing in the streets? You mean our own news agencies were just spewing propaganda? Now ain't that a surprise? Why do you suppose they would do that?
Re: Sedition
Faustine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote : Tim wrote: Several of us were in the Sierras this past weekend for a training session on weapons use, explosives, terrorism measures, and methods for monkey wrenching the U.S. government so as to paralyze its police state moves. For security reasons, the location was not publicized. So why are you publicizing it after the fact? Is it really worth the risk you're taking by mentioning it just to respond to a taunt by some ignorant smugster behind a remailer? If questioning your commitment is all it takes to push your buttons, I'd say that's less than optimal. I'm sure anyone who bears ill-will to the group is finding this whole thread quite instructive--undoubtedly the point of the original post in the first place. Good show. How sickening to think that now you have to worry about getting anti-paramilitary training statutes dumped on you (on top of anything else) just because a few people couldn't resist showing up a stupid troll. Even worse,in true have you stopped beating your wife fashion, it makes it appear that everyone who posts here and is passionate about encryption is doing something rightfully covered by the sedtion laws, which couldn't be further from the truth. I resent this profoundly, but I'll talk about what and why I do what I do (or don't do) on my own time, not as a response to someone baiting me. No need to be on such a hair trigger: the archives speak for themselves. For you to keep tossing out all this sucker-bait-for-feds in the name of furthering your one-man strategic deterrence campaign is a bit excessive. Once you've established your credibility there's no real reason to keep raising the stakes. Especially not in response to someone blowing virtual spitwads at you from behind a remailer. Here's hoping your temper doesn't get the better of you. ~Faustine. DNS has been giving me grief into the wee hours so I figure I'm pretty slow myself but I'm thinking you just could be a mite clueless. *When asked by parents why you're taking so long in the bathroom : A: Oh, I'm just shooting up so I can put up with you guys at the dinner table. *When asked by the priest how you spent your weekend : A: Oh we had an orgy and sacrificed a goat to Satan at midnight on Saturday. The blood was really tasty. Then we stalked hot teen virgins at the church picnic. *When asked by the drug police how you spent your weekend : A: Oh, we moved 100 lbs of crack from our labs to NYC and wasted a prosecutor who was giving us a little grief in LA. *When asked (observed speaking) by the counterterrorism official how you spent your weekend : Tim wrote: Several of us were in the Sierras this past weekend for a training session on weapons use, explosives, terrorism measures, and methods for monkey wrenching the U.S. government so as to paralyze its police state moves. When asked by a member of the Comittee to Stamp Out Violence in the Media what your favorite movie is you launch into detailed descriptions of Pulp Fiction and praise each scene lavishly and then challenge her to a game of DOOM. When asked about my opinion for what needed at the library in my town ( since I'm not responsible for doing anything about it but know a few folks who are ) I say there should be more hardcopy porno and a better IN connection. Then I don't waste my time answering questions that will never be implemented anyway. Is that enough? So if false it is art and even if it is true, so what? Studying tactics methods is not planning some sort of an attack.
The Republican Position on USC T 18 Ch 115 Sec 2383ff
What a guy! Abraham Lincoln : Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it. President Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address (available at http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres31.html) Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable,---a most sacred right---a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government, may choose to exercise it. (Speech in the United States House of Representatives, Jan. 12, 1848) As far as I am concerned, to the extent that a government restricts speech against it, it betrays its weakness and strengthens the oppostion. When was the last time we heard one of our current crop of political weenies speak so clearly or with such faith in the governed? Not in my lifetime. Mike
Re: The Republican Position on USC T 18 Ch 115 Sec 2383ff
OK, you got me, so I'm guilty of that political trick of ignoring the broader picture and using only partial facts in support of my own narrow point of view. sosumi ;) The words, taken on their own, are fine words and I stick by the bit about a government's willingness to persecute dissidents being a sign of its inherent weakness and lack of fitness to serve. Mike Trei, Peter wrote: From: [EMAIL PROTECTED][SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] What a guy! Abraham Lincoln : Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it. President Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address (available at http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres31.html) Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable,---a most sacred right---a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government, may choose to exercise it. (Speech in the United States House of Representatives, Jan. 12, 1848) As far as I am concerned, to the extent that a government restricts speech against it, it betrays its weakness and strengthens the oppostion. When was the last time we heard one of our current crop of political weenies speak so clearly or with such faith in the governed? Not in my lifetime. Mike As I said in an earlier post, there is usually a gulf - a huge one, between what institutions say and what they do Consider these actions of Lincoln in the light the above quotes: From 'Getting Lincoln Right': http://www.lewrockwell.com/dieteman/dieteman50.html [...] Also, should those who debate the greatness of Lincoln ignore the fact that he arrested and exiled a US Congressman from Ohio - Clement Valladingham - who was also running for governor of Ohio at the time, over anti-war remarks made during a campaign speech? Valladingham was arrested in his bedroom in the middle of the night. Should one also overlook Lincoln's destruction of the rule of law in loyal Maryland? When Maryland voiced its support for the CSA and appeared itself ready to secede, Lincoln arrested 31 Maryland legislators, the mayor of Baltimore (the nation's 3rd largest city at the time), and a US Congressman from Maryland, as well as numerous editors and publishers. Not only did Lincoln imprison two US Congressmen, he also wrote out an arrest warrant for the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, Roger Taney, after Taney wrote the opinion in Ex Parte Merryman (1861) rebuking Lincoln's illegitimate suspension of habeas corpus (see Charles Adams, p 46-53). John Marshall, whose opinion in Marbury v. Madison (1803) famously declared that It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is, also wrote the opinion in Ex Parte Bollman and Swartwout (1807) declaring that suspension of habeas corpus was a power vested only in the Congress. Lincoln simply ignored the law. Additionally, US Army troops refused to release Merryman into the custody of a federal marshal sent by Taney pursuant to the court order that Merryman be freed. Lincoln, then, imprisoned members of the federal legislative branch, and also sought to imprison the chief member of the federal judiciary. What happened to checks and balances? Lincoln, with the backing of the army, simply exercised whatever powers he desired. As noted Lincoln scholar Mark Neely writes in The Last Best Hope of Earth, Lincoln arrested the Marylanders without much agonizing over their constitutionality (p 133). [...]
A Simple Plan ( Re: explosives )
matt . [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote : Science project? omg shut the hell up. For all we know, your probably some crazed arab going on a suicide spree By the name perhaps a Basque Separatist is more likely. From: coretta fontenot [EMAIL PROTECTED] How can I make an explosive? its cause that's my science project It's a fairly simple process really. 1) read about many types 2) choose one 3) get the materials 4) make it 5) turn the material in to your watch commander 6) blame everyone that you found to be of assistance during your project of providing material assistance to terrorists #6 is all too likely to be true because some terrorists wear uniforms and some hold public office.
Re: Sony and Robots...shows how crazy the anti-hacking regime has become
Tim May [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote : Saw this interesting application of the new hardware copyright/anti-tampering/anti-reverse-engineering regime in place http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011107/tc/sony_robot_hack_1.html This shows how crazy the laws have gotten. These robots are essentially computers, and the hacks are just new computer programs. Imagine: Dell has announced they are are suing anyone who makes available software for their machines that Dell did not authorize. --Tim May I have my own gripe about this and related items. We've all read about MS's nasty license agreements and how they affect the spread of alternative operating systems. Well, I wanted to pick a decent graphics card that would be well supported under Linux. ATI has a lot of hooplah on their site about how they are Linux-friendly so I started there. The card I tentatively chose was the All-in-Wonder Radeon. It has MPEG2 HW, TV Tuner, Graphics engine, TV out. There is XFREE86 support and there is a project that has video capture working but no matter where I looked I couldn't find technical docs for the thing. Isn't that where most driver projects begin? It's what I've always stared with anyway. So I called their Developer Support number and was told, in spite of the talk about Linux support on the website, that they don't give that technical reference out to just anyone but that some information had been released to the Linux community. I have yet to locate exactly what was released. I know it does not include the register set description for the TVout portion and having seen SW DCT code in project sources I wonder if the HW is being put fully to use. A HW DCT makes a huge difference in performance. The net effect is that Linux development is hobbled. Is this because ATI is protecting some sort of IP? Anyway it kind of ticks me off. So there's more, I'm pretty suspicious of BIOS and MS OS snoopiness. Wouldn't it be nice to have open source BIOS? There is a Sourceforge project called FreeBIOS and a cousin called LinuxBIOS. Again, I like to start with documentation. Well the motherboard mfr offers little in the way of technical info. Same for the chipset mfr. Unless you're a corporate customer. I don't really have a lot of time to reverse engineer this shit but I'm just about mad enough to make time. Mike
Re: [CNN] FBI: Threat against Western bridges 'not credible'
read it. the alternatives are not quite as cheap or plentiful or accessible as the Middle East and if many oil eaters start looking away from the ME there will be other problems too David Honig wrote: At 10:33 AM 11/7/01 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Mainlining petroleum has helped put us at risk. Allowing automotive and Solution: we just buy oil from other places. Only transient economic effects on us and many fewer body bags. See http://cryptome.org/alqaida-game.htm excerpt: AL- QAIDA S ENDGAME? A STRATEGIC SCENARIO ANALYSIS The following analysis is the product of DSSis strategic analysis team using scenario planning to make sense of the current situation and the war on terrorism. During the course of exploring future scenarios, past events acquired meaning, and the direction of the conflict as desired by Al-Qaida began to make sense. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY DSSis strategic scenario analysis regarding Al-Qaidas endgame leads to the following conclusions about the real current events: The network of networks known as Al-Qaida has successfully laid a trap for the United States. Al-Qaida retains the initiative and the U.S. is operating inside the intentions and plans of Al-Qaida Al-Qaida cannot destroy the U.S. forces inside the U.S., nor can it convince the U.S. to leave the Middle East using terror attacks. The intention of the terror attacks is a provocation to force the U.S. to engage and deploy forces to the Middle East, where such forces could be destroyed The intention and purpose of Al-Qaidas plans are either to make the Middle East ungovernable, or to gain control of the petroleum production system in the region. Application of the oil weapon could be used to attempt to force withdrawal of U.S. presence in the region; outright destruction of the petroleum production system would leave the U.S. with no or greatly reduced real interests in the region Control or destruction of the petroleum production system in the Middle East, and the potential for attacks on global petroleum production, would transform the political situation in the region, initiate a global depression by degrading or destroying critical industries of developing and advanced Nation-States, and drastically shift the geopolitical balance
Re: what kind of bomb?
cpaul [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote : Witnesses also said they saw a U.S. plane drop a bomb Tuesday at the Bagram front lines, about 25 miles north of Kabul, creating a mushroom cloud that billowed at least 1,000 feet into the air. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011030/ts/attacks_afghanistan_549.html A really big one. Still conventional. Besides, a standard-sized one might have hit a munitions or fuel bunker. Hell, a 10 acre tire fire in central California made a mushroom shaped cloud several thousand feet high. During Vietnam there were boxcar-sized bombs used to clear an LZ in the jungle. How many tons? I don't know but they made ~100 yard circle.
Re: FBI MAS
Any sense in blacklisting IP ranges and refusing connections?
Re: FBI MAS
OK. Yer an equal opportunity provider. Bandwidth costs money, yes? Ask the botniks to register and send them automated tgz update packages monthly, weekly, whatever. Paid protection might be cheaper than being robbed. Do you accept anonymous donations?
Re: Transperancy Spray?
Well, I was watching CNN and it looks like the Postal workers now are armed with a new weapon.. Against terror of course. THe whole cant read someone elses mail thing is out the window it looks like, they can spray this go on the letter and read through the envelope.. It seems implausable but its CNN, they dont lie right? well ANYWAYS, I now have a nice stash of black construction paper... Yes, that would work nicely as the outside sheet. You spray it on and it temporarily makes the envelope clear, said Robert Schlegel, vice-president of the makers, Mistral Security, of Maryland. It leaves an odor for 10 to 15 minutes, but there is no smudging of ink, no stain, no evidence at all. The envelope is transparent for a few minutes and you can respray it hundreds of times without leaving any stain. I would bet that there is SOMETHING that is dissolved by liquid freon. Just mark your letters with the stuff and look for the integrity of the mark at the other end. The USPS won't be checking mail this way anytime soon. If they were they would use some sort of freon recovery system to contain costs. Oh, well, it will soon be time to go buy $2.95 stamps to pay for UV, E-beam, freon and zoot suits. Mike
RE: Transperancy Spray?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote : On 30 Oct 2001, at 14:51, Sandy Sandfort wrote: Mike [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote: I would bet that there is SOMETHING that is dissolved by liquid freon. Just mark your letters with the stuff and look for the integrity of the mark at the other end. Or... is there something that REACTS to freon in an interesting way...? S a n d y I think freon is incredibly inert, that's why it's used. Since there are so many ways to protect the contents of the message the freon topic is not all that interesting. It would be mildly amusing if there were a way to detect that freon had been used on a piece of paper. I would guess that it could be done by either finding an ink that was dissolved by freon or some other material that would sit happily in place until lifted and dispersed. http://solvdb.ncms.org/syn01.htm a fun solvents database - not too useful here http://www.redwop.com/technotes.asp?ID=107 not really relevant but interesting Freon seems to be ( or have been ) used mostly for degreasing. Could you make some sort of nondrying oil-based marker that would blur or weaken when drenched with freon? Probably. Buy some raw artist's pigment and mill it with a non-drying grease that is too thick to migrate appreciably over the time period of interest when applied to paper. Wetting with solvent would probably cause damage to a mark. Mike My impression is that virtually any transparent liquid will do a reasonable job of making the envelope transparent, but the considerations are that you'd want something that doesn't leave a residue and won'tr make the ink run. I believe that paper is white for the reason that snow is (as opposed to the reason that titanium oxide is), that is, you've got a bunch of surfaces where the index of refraction changes significantly from that of air and there's a chance of reflection at each surface, but the actual paper fibers are transparent. The liquid you spray on is filling in the gaps with something with an index of refraction much closer to that of the paper fibers. Pretty sure that's more or less how they work. Definately there's no chemical reaction going on. Sounds like a good explanation. George
obit
Tim, Re: the death of the fourth. Yer list is too short. R.I.P. : I, IV, V, VI, VIII The obit may be premature but they're certainly on their respective deathbeds. Don't expect the docs from the Judicial branch to effect a cure - they've administered some pretty nearly lethal doses in the past. II? Well, it's an obvious target, to keep weapons out of the hands of terrorists don't you know. Never mind the fact that only about 2-3% of incoming containers are inspected at ports of entry... Instead of fixing cabin partitions, updating training scenarios, adding cctv and a sky marshall we get Big Brother and his database ranger proctologist squad. Instead of improved customs and immigration inspections we get Heinrich Himmler and his boys in black inspecting the motherland. Now that the formalities are out of the way I want to see what Himmler actually does in his new found meat suit. As far as colors on maps, any distinction between red and blue is imaginary, the recent voting rolls show the true colors - mostly yellow, with some red, white and black arm bands. ITBAWC OCDLRO WU LEG F CN KI ET DI O N Having trouble keeping my breakfast down, Mike
Re: Where the torture never stops..{ *** WARNING *** top-posted }
Greg, Welcome to America's New Era. Goebels, Himmler and the rest of the team are reincarnated. Welcome back to meatspace Gentlemen, it's been far too long! What organizations will be challenging the Constitutionality of at least sections of the soon to be recent Gestapo Act? Who has standing to challenge a law that has yet to be enforced? Where are $ best placed to get results? Don't get me wrong - I think we have to address the issues of terrorism on multiple fronts but what I read about the USA PATRIOT stuff makes leaving the coutry's name USA blatantly fraudulent. Truly nauseated, Mike Greg Broiles [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote : At 01:04 PM 10/25/2001 -0700, Onin wal-a bin Hakkin wrote: if you are incarcerated for a fucked up deed you shouldnt expect to be put in the hilton. is this not a universal idea and accepted? jailprisontheklink is supposed to SUCK. [...] i ask you, am i a bad person for feeling this way? What you seem to be missing is that the approx 1000 people now being held haven't been incarcerated for a fucked up deed - they're being held for what's probably a spectrum of reasons, ranging from found in an airport with a one-way plane ticket, a boxcutter, and a forged passport on the morning of 9/11 to gave a cop too much attitude while having a non-Western name. But we don't know who's being held, nor for how long, nor what the reasons are, or the evidence which establishes that the reasons have some relationship to reality. We have a special process for deciding who's done fucked up deeds and thus deserving of punishment, and it's called a trial. After these people have had one, then we can argue about what ought to happen to them. Until then - and/or at least until the evidence against these people has been made public and subjected to scrutiny - we don't know whether these people are Mother Teresa or Satan himself or somewhere in between. If we're going to start beating and torturing and killing people pretrial (paying special attention to foreigners who may not fully agree with our culture or values), exactly how is the ruling regime in the US different from the ruling regime in Afghanistan? The only aspect left that I can see that's different would be a nominally secular vs religious basis, but I don't trust Ashcroft to respect that for long. Pretrial detention is not supposed to suck, it's supposed to be minimally burdensome, to the extent that's compatible with making sure people show up for trial, don't commit further crimes, and don't cost an exorbitant amount of staff attention. (* This isn't meant as a claim that what we had prior to 9/11 in terms of trials, pretrial detention, or any of the other criminal procedure features was what it's advertised to be, or that it was compatible with the Constitution - but I still regard the abandonment of even the pretense of complying with the Constitution as a significant step towards some very serious trouble.) -- Greg Broiles [EMAIL PROTECTED] We have found and closed the thing you watch us with. -- New Delhi street kids
Re: FINALLY! we can buy Staria
Neil Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote : What's this then? http://www.tactronix.com/s100.htm -MW- Looks like a nicely rendered computer image of the proposed device (somebody there is good with POV-Ray?). -Neil Too expensive.
Re: CDR: Senate approves USA Act, sends to Bush, Ashcroft vows newera
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote :
This has got to be the single scariest thing I have *ever* read from any
government official. After reading this, I doubt that the nuclear
winter comments that have been bandied about are going to be very far off
their mark...
It especially terrifying to note that this speech specifically targets
sympathizers as well as actual terrorists.
Even more disturbing are phrases like -
Investigators focused on function, not form - they
focused on doing what was necessary to get the job
done rather than what was dictated by the organizational
chart.
{ like judges }
The first principle is airtight surveillance of terrorists.
{ obviously since we can't a priori know who is a terrorist
and who is not we have to watch everyone. }
Communications regarding terrorist offenses such as the use
of biological or chemical agents, financing acts of terrorism
or materially supporting terrorism will be subject to
interception by law enforcement.
{ sound like domestic echelon/keywords? is simple discussion
or browsing enough to grab the attention of the
all-seeing eye? }
As soon as possible, law enforcement will begin to employ
new tools that ease administrative burdens and delays in
apprehending terrorists.
{ we all know what the main burden is }
J.A. Terranson
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
I think an off-site backup of personal or interesting material is a
good idea.
Mike
Re: Neverending Cycle ( was : Re: USPS: glowing by leaps and bounds )
David Honig [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote : Personally I'd prefer a non-colonial foreign policy that doesn't generate such antipathy. The message of the WTC is this: regular ole' non-mil sheeple *are* held responsible for the actions of their government. *Even* in the US. What a concept. I suppose the sheeple in Dresden (etc.) know what that's like. When the US populations' endocrines settle down, maybe they'll clue in to cause and effect. Doubt it. Getting involved in others' family feuds is just too much fun. What was it General Washington said about foreign entanglements? I'd tattoo it onto every congressvermin's forehead. Not that it isn't a good direction to head but I wonder what your time-scale is for the conversion of a society that cannot survive without an influx of inexpensive resources from foreign sources into something less colonial? It has to be decades at a minimum. In the meantime how do we deal with the Islamic Fundamentalist nutters? Or our own Christian Fundamentalist nutters for that matter. I don't want to hear about good and evil, Christian vs. Muslim, True faiths vs. ersatz faiths or right vs. wrong. The crew that did the WTC is dangerous. Those who are sending anthrax through the mails are dangerous. Near-term solutions are called for. I would like to see solutions that don't involve further trashing of our civil rights but I have no compassion for the terrorists or freedom fighters or whatever the hell you want to call them. Mike
Re: Market Competition for Security Measures
You seem to have left out the fact that the single largest player in the market today is the government. The security measures that are now in place for air travel are IMHO an abuse by regulators that amounts to using a private actor as a proxy for an illegal search : to whit names, flight numbers and dates. Feinstein was on the news this morning talking about using airlight flight manifests to develop databases for tracking movements. As far as I am concerned an airline ticket should be a bearer instrument entitling the holder to passage. Their job is to get people from A to B. I should be able to travel as Ben Franklin with an ID I printed myself as long as the fare has been paid. The reasons for my travel, how and when I paid for my ticket and the date of my return trip are irrelevant. Had the cockpit doors been secure, the pilots able to watch CCTV of the passenger areas, plainclothes police been aboard and the info gained from Ramzi Yousef's PC captured in Manila been incorporated into hijack training and protocols 911 would not have happened even if half of al Quaeda had been flying United that day. About the only implementation of a trust certificate that would be acceptable is one that was issued after convincing the issuer that you were a good guy and was tied to you by perhaps a biometric and a PIN attribute but for which all connections to your identity were not stored. IOW, we don't know who you are but we believe the certificate belongs to you, we trust the issuer and they trusted you so off you go then. I'm sure there are protocols for proving membership without betraying identity. I want a choice in whether I leave a record of my travels or not. For estate reasons I may want to escrow my travel records for the duration of the trip. Bottom line : I want more control, more freedom, not less. Mike
Neverending Cycle ( was : Re: USPS: glowing by leaps and bounds )
Shit, so much for ordering mushroom spores by mail! Hopefully UPS and fedex won't follow suit. Another option might be for each package to be dropped into a poly bag, heat sealed and rinsed before being handled by staff. Our society has, for all practical purposes, endless vulnerabilities. If as each vulnerability is exploited we plan on taking drastic steps to secure it from future exploitation, the costs will be staggering and the list of unsecured items will hardly diminish. The result of the current approach is an authoritarian society with a neverending, self-justifying security project ahead of it. Sounds like a wonderful place to live if you're an insect. Mike
Re: FBI considers torture as suspects stay silent
Declan McCullagh [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote : On Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 08:50:01PM -0700, Tim May wrote: Yes, but this is one of those manufactured, utterly implausible situations. I cannot think of a single instance where a suspect had this kind of knowledge, with this kind of stakes, and with this kind of next three hours timetable. Even relaxing each item by a factor of 10...I can't think of any such examples. Neither can I. My intention was not to suggest that it's acceptable to rip out the accused's toenails, slowly, but to suggest that this is the kind of scenario that we may hear politicians talking about in short order. -Declan I wonder what orders our raiders have in regards prisoners? While we're debating what may or may not happen here my guess is that the decision about what to do with captured al Quaeda or Taliban higher-ups on the battlefield was decided long ago. The interrogators and their bags of tricks are ready for subjects. We have to know what they know. Mike
Re: Your papers please
David Honig [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote : fishing through wreckage for a crumpled black box recorder seems pretty old fashioned, too. 30K planes in the air before; maybe 20K now (or 30K 2/3rds full..). Lots of data from mobile senders. [Yes, some of the 30K are too small to be interesting.] Though now perhaps you could do it by piggybacking on the cellphone mesh? Cheaper than satellite. (Though what about hitting multiple cells, the non-EMI reason for not using cells on planes) N years ago a robust tape recorder was the best you could do; N/2 years ago a solid state recorder became reasonable. For some value of N. Now RF (digitally encoded, bursty?) is feasible. There is no reason not to have redundant systems - record locally and remotely. This goes for airline black boxes and personal record keeping...
AG on spotting terrorists in our midst
http://www.cnn.com/2001/HEALTH/conditions/10/18/ashcroft.tips/index.html 4. Someone who appears to be concealing something or attempting to put something over on somebody Does this mean that witholding your zipcode from the overinquisitive sales clerk will get you on a list? Any attempts at opacity will be punished! Sounds pretty fucking stupid, but then, what do you expect from the guy?
Looking for news
Was I hearing things or did China stop issuing visas for people from 22 middle eastern countries? Thought I heard it, can't find it. Mike
Inflation
Greg Broiles [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote : At 03:13 PM 10/19/2001 -0700, Karsten M. Self wrote: /me retreats to iron w/ thermometer. Black and Decker Light 'n' Easy iron, cotton dishtowl (folded quarto), Good Cook dial thermometer inserted under top fold. With four minutes' preheat, temperature is off the scale (2200F), extrapolating, it looks to be 2700-2800F. After about two minutes, there's a slight yellowing of the dishtowel. Is it possible you're off by a factor of 10 here? I am very skeptical that you have an iron which heats up to 2200 or 2700 degrees Fahrenheit. I would expect a little more than a slight yellowing of the dish towel at those temperatures, unless you have asbestos dish towels you use along with your superheated iron. -- Greg Broiles [EMAIL PROTECTED] We have found and closed the thing you watch us with. -- New Delhi street kids Kind of like using one of those ugly red lab hot air guns to dry your hair, eh? Definitely an honest mistake. Unlike the numbers quoted for available doses of smallpox vaccine which have risen steadily from 3M to 10M as time has passed. Standing in line for vaccination - would you like yours straight up or with soda. They prosecute people for diluting pharmaceuticals don't they? Numbers bloat not quite as outrageous as the US casualty estimates that were part of the decision making process for whether to invade Japan or drop Uranium on it which started out as 10K and reached 1M by the time public statements were issued. Bye, I have to drive 300 miles home now, or is that 3000 miles? and there are over a gazillion cars on the road. 10^53768904523 Regards, m
MWandawi art
I fooled around with the filtering but the source data is pure crap. It's a low quality JPEG and there are artifacts everywhere, especially around the towers and the rider. Has anyone found better source material : higher resolution, lower quantization? BTW - there's lots more art, mostly sinister if you care to see it that way. Look at the one in gallery 4 : WTF is a wooden shoe ( sabot ) doing next to an Indian elephant? Also in pic 0110 there is a nice death's head in the clouds to the left of the flying cherub thing.. I have some trouble with the interpretation of yellow as a biowar, since it seems to be something he horse is wanting to graze on. http://people.a2000.nl/mwandawi/
Re: Threat Recognition Testing (fwd)
Harmon Seaver wrote: Yup, play around with light-sound machines and biofeedback for awhile, you definitely can learn to control your brain waves. This TRT, however, is still pretty scary -- especially if, as they claim, it's allowed as court evidence. Don't know how they could really do that --- not just thought crime, thought conviction as well, eh? As long as you cannot be compelled to let the monkeys attach electrodes to your brain. Mike ( Neo-Luddite )
Re: Stupid Congress Tricks: anti-terror bills target cash
Declan, The authoritarian streak is wide and deep ain't it? Every time I hear Bush talk about protecting freedom I feel nauseous. Which bill? Is this bill referring to annyone carrying cash within the borders or to people crossing the borders? There are already customs regulations with a $10k threshold. Mike
Re: WTC Photos
Dr. Evil [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote : This brings to mind something which would be a very cool project: Have a digital camera that public key encrypts the photos before storing them. Obviously the private key would be stored in some other safe place, so if the camera is stolen, no one can see what the photographs are. I'm sure Canon will never add this feature, but someday soon these things may be running Linux and may be hackable. Anyway, I can't wait to see the photos. Most of these things are SOCs based on standard 32-bit CPU's with specialized peripherals for CCD, LCD, pixel processing. Often they're using conventional RTOSes like VxWorks, pSOS, Nucleus. Most of them include some mechanism for updating the application SW in FLASH. That's where you might start disassembly. If the camera of interest is using an SOC that is not proprietary you can probably get data sheets from the Si manufacturer. They're definitely hackable. The BIG PROBLEM as with everything else is how to find the time to do the fun stuff? I think it would be cool to have a high quality CCD front end that could be used as an add-on to an iPAQ. Use a microdrive for storage, store everything in Bayer format(fast), do the post pocessing later or in the background. An iPAQ could handle the control of a front end and you could do whatever you want with the files. Mike
Re: Brinworld: citizens with speed-radar
An Metet [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote : Nomen wrote: According to collected data, the average speed in 30 mph zones ranged from 35.5 to 46 mph. In the 35 mph zones, the average speed was about 43 mph. The highest speed, clocked by Colonial Estates East Citizens on Patrol group, was 62 mph in a 30 mph zone. Too bad this wasn't California. According to that states laws, if a survey shows that average driver speeds are substantially higher than the posted speed limit, the speed limit must be raised. It would have been a sweet irony if these busybodies had ended up with 60 MPH posted speed limits on their residential streets. And if that had been the response in my neighborhood, this busybody would promptly start salting the roadway with vast numbers of 1 roofing nails. Nobody has to put up with that bullshit. On arterial roads this may be an interesting approach. In a residential neighborhood you're absolutlely right. Rather than flatten everyone's tires, ID the worst offenders then give them a chance to get it right. My dad has suggested leaving old strollers, bikes kids toys around the streets. Deny knowledge or ownership. In our area the limit is 25, there are a couple of shitheads who regularly do 45. They deserve to be beaten to within an inch of their lives, if I thought I could get away with it...the same with the assholes who let their dogs run around loose. Oh to live out in the country again where an aggressive dog loose on your property could be called a threat to livestock... sorry, I'm pining... PS - about eartags for cows and sheeple^H^H - they only seem to mind for a few seconds then they go right back to chewing their cud...
Man arrested in burning US flag
Don't you hate it when the issues are tangled. It would much nicer if there were a clean and simple case of free speech but no, it has to be impure. OTOH the police could be lying about the firecracker and the struggle knowing that the Constitutional issue is clear ( today anyway ) and wanting to punish the unbeliever. The neighbor is a real piece of work too. Let's all pitch in and send him a brown shirt.
Re: Lesson from WTC: Question Authority
On 9-11 I was awake at 5:30 AM PST reading the paper and watching CNN. Predictably I was glued to the news until past noon. When I finally made it into work I was here about an hour or two when I was told that someone had phoned in a bomb threat. The official advice from the PD was essentially you can stay in the building if you want to. I stayed just long enough to let everyone know. The consensus was exactly this - fuck it, we're outta here. I couldn't think of a single reason to take a chance even if it was most likely just some goofball over at the insurance company who felt he should have the day off like everyone in the WTC. I think everyone is so used to a nice, safe, cushy existence that crises are not recognized and urgency is seen as foolish. Mike
Get Real
This discussion about talking to the FBI has me ROTFLMAO. I feel like I'm watching a John Wayne movie with its simplified moral categories of good and evil. Why not say that cooperation is dependent upon the situation? Exercise your judgement. Witness to a hit and run : I wrote the make, model and license number down - here's a copy Witness to a victimless crime : What? Dunno, wasn't paying attention. Witness to a pie in the face delivery for a politician : It was great! The pieman? Dunno, I was too busy laughing! Questioned as part of some future anti-crypto fishing expedition : Piss off Our governments and its agents are not 100% an enemy - they're just very prone to bad behavior and require close watching and a vocal constituency. Mike
Re: FAA new rules and the nEW gEStApo (was Nail clippers
Yawn... xganon [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote : Hmm lets outlaw gelatin capsules on the grounds that they facilitate turning human finger and toenails very hard and allow the use of same as weapons(it does NOT take very much to tear the caratoid artery open) Don't you mean carotid? same for toothpicks and teeth rolled up magazines facilitate lethal nerve strikes and dont get me started on pens/pencils, chopsticks and forks :) anon Recommended reading : Navy Seals Reference Manual NSRM123-54GXC-67453 101 Ways to Dismember Your Opponent With A Jelly Bean snore, whistle whistle whistle snore, whistle whistle whistle
ANWR
CDR: Re: Intercepts foretold of 'big attack' -- The Washington Times John Young [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote : Bill Gertz has received an extraordinary number of leaked documents. Most of those occurred during the Clinton era when national security mongerers opposed to Clinton's policies leaked top secret stuff. Those kinds of leaks seemed to have diminished now that those anti-Dems are in power again. They continue to be opposed to carry overs from the Clinton team like Tenet and others. There could be more leaks or worse crimes against humanity to help get rid of those remnants. However, ex-members of Clinton's administration are now leaking natsec stuff as Bush's team increases bashing of the Dem's policies, and counterterrorism claims are sure to get leaked left and right once the pol's dipshit backslapping and airkissing vanish. Congressional hearings on who knew what and when about the 911 attacks may not be in the offing any time soon, but they are needed to determine which war mongerers were most in cahoots with their good buddy jihadists to foster mineral exploitation in the target region and as a sideline boost the need for strategic Alaskan oil. What Bush and cronies want to do in ANWR is entirely unrelated to strategy - they want the right to go make money by drilling on public lands. If it goes through in the near future watch how much the government spends on roads and other support to get the drillers in there and how much is payed in return by the oil companies. Long-term energy strategy is more important than corporate greed. The most strategic thing to do with Alaskan oil would be to leave it right where it is. Dipping in to the reserves unnecessarily is moronic. NB : I'm not opposed to drilling Alaskan oil - after Kuwait runs dry... Mike
Re: ANWR
Steve, I read it a few days ago. I think that it will take a decade or two to be widely accepted. I'm betting that the standard method of management by crisis will be how our country deals with the end of oil whether the writer is corrrect or not about the date. Mike Steve Schear wrote: At 02:43 PM 9/24/2001 -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What Bush and cronies want to do in ANWR is entirely unrelated to strategy - they want the right to go make money by drilling on public lands. If it goes through in the near future watch how much the government spends on roads and other support to get the drillers in there and how much is payed in return by the oil companies. Long-term energy strategy is more important than corporate greed. The most strategic thing to do with Alaskan oil would be to leave it right where it is. Dipping in to the reserves unnecessarily is moronic. NB : I'm not opposed to drilling Alaskan oil - after Kuwait runs dry... The End of Oil http://www.sciam.com/2001/1001issue/1001reviews1.html
Re: CDR: ANWR
Jim Choate [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote : On Mon, 24 Sep 2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: NB : I'm not opposed to drilling Alaskan oil - after Kuwait runs dry... I am. Find another way other than killing the Polar Bears (they have to helicopter them around the N. pole each year so they don't starve), seals, whales, etc. Your right to TRY to make money doesn't over-ride my right to a reasonably maintaned planet. As usual you misunderstand me - I only approve of going into ANWR in a case of dire need. Our society depends so heavily on fossil fuels that a sudden removal would cause panic and starvation. And as far as $25+/gallon gas...go baby go! $25 is a bit extreme - lets move it up to ~$3 1 year from now to start. Change it too quickly and you cause too much trouble for the economy. I also think we should learn a lesson from NY - annual vehicle registration costs are based on vehicle weight. Mike
Re: crypto law survey questions
Jim Choate wrote: On Wed, 19 Sep 2001, Declan McCullagh wrote: On Tue, Sep 18, 2001 at 05:40:27PM -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is it true that Gregg is giving up? Has someone told him that his ATM, his browser and his garage door opener would be outlawed? Depends on whether you believe politicotalk or not. Gregg's comments were heartfelt, IMHO. Sad that the only principles politicos seem to have nowadays is the principle of limiting crypto, privacy. As usual, you miss the point, they're trying to save their jobs. Crypto is a means, not the end. Hardly. The symbolic gesture of proposing legislation can serve a political purpose but do you disagree that there are those who consider it a desirable end? And who knows the club membership status of each player? Mike
crypto law survey questions
Eric Murray [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote : Lots of media are running survey questions asking if the US should ban strong cryptography. Here is a more honest survey: 1. Are you willing to ban strong cryptography so the FBI, CIA, NSA etc. can listen in on potential terrorists, and jail Americans that use strong cryptography? chop 9. Terrorists do not always communicate digitally. In fact there are rumors that Osama bin Laden communicates with his associates either by sending verbal messages with trusted couriers from families that he knows, or for longer distances, using paper messages sent via services like FedEx. Do you think that banning strong crypto in America will slow bin Laden down at all? Eric Very nice. We in the choir agree. Now how are you going to get those in congress ( who prefer to be 99.9% fact-free ) to see it your way? You'd have better luck opening a restaurant called Porky's Kosher Pig Hut next door to a mosque in Kabul. Mike
Re: Hey! I've Got A Good Idea...
Heavy Stuff. Puts to shame my GoodIdea of handing a basket of Official Major League Baseballs to each airline passenger upon boarding. Let's see a homicidal maniac with a toenail clipper stand up to that. Mike
Re: crypto law survey questions
Declan McCullagh wrote: On Tue, Sep 18, 2001 at 11:46:06AM -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: We in the choir agree. Now how are you going to get those in congress ( who prefer to be 99.9% fact-free ) to see it your way? Probably not worth the effort. They'll do what they want, no matter what the crypto mavens say. I wonder what's going to be in the emergency anti-terrorism bill that Bush will send Congress on Wed or Thurs. Maybe not crypto restrictions, but the language will likely bear a close read. Send it when you find it. -Declan
Re: crypto law survey questions
Declan McCullagh wrote: I managed to get an outline of the emergency anti-terrorism bill. Wiretap, FISA, immigration, court procedure, etc. But no encryption restrictions listed. -Declan Is it true that Gregg is giving up? Has someone told him that his ATM, his browser and his garage door opener would be outlawed? The talk of crypto regs came from more corners than just Gregg's. Why would the interest pass so quickly? Is it because they have faith in MSWindows, Carnivore and keyboard loggers? It will probably surface again soon. Mike
Re: I hope this war puts an end to PC nonsense
An Metet [EMAIL PROTECTED] pontificated : Frissy whined: As I said to some one the other day, If this is war no smoking regulations. SWmoke 'em if nyou've got 'em. DCF. Fuck that noise. If this is war it means I get to blow your stupid ass away if you blow smoke in my direction. If you guys are going to restate old ideas at least add something to them. I prefer the old Far Side cartoon : two men in a boat fishing, mushroom clouds in the distance : You know what this means? Yeah, no more limits and screw the size restrictions. Or somehing to that effect. May belched: I wonder if the GenXers (and younger) will be taking out their nose rings, tongue studs, and other bits of metal stuck through their bodies, primitive-style. (And not just so they can pass through metal detectors...) Old is new. Fuck that shit too -- you really are showing your age, aren't you old folks? You got a problem with archaic revival? As this little ditty plays out, you will see (if you survive at all in your solitude, which isn't too likely) that society will re-group into tribes (what you call gangs, old man) and all that jive will be everywhere for tribal identification, rank, or just plain beauty. New is old. Conrgatulations. You have predicted what already IS. You have overlooked the all too obvious fact that society is already grouped into tribes complete with a host of primitive behaviors. Where do you people get this weird crap from anyway? Does it matter?
Re: The Enemies List
Has the fact that a disaster occurred changed much? The US was always vulnerable, now the general population knows it. I'm expecting war in the Middle East and reprisals in the States. There is not a great deal anyone can do about it. As for the fallout of Tuesday's events, well...the heart of the crypto issue hasn't changed one iota. Those idiots who are advocating bans and back doors are off in the tall grass as they always have been. They are promising safety that they cannot now or ever deliver no matter what tools they are given. Like con artists soliciting donations that will never make it to the people who need it they are trying to leverage a tragedy as a means to further their own businesses, careers and power with no regard for the outcome. Are these advocates of the erosion of civil liberties enemies and criminals? Sure, and they'll be fought the same way they've been fought before - in the courts, in the press and in front of a monitor. As for the talk of violence, I have no way, need or desire to sort the rhetorical from the real so I won't even try. Yesterday I was behind any action our government wanted to take, today, after hearing calls to increase domestic surveillance capabilities and learning that my keychain Victorinox is a felonious weapon, I'm back to my usual pessimism. I think there are far too many clueless morons in positions of power for the job of governing to be done well. I hope that I'm wrong and that there are enough truly bright and dedicated people to do a good job. Mike
Re: Cypherpunks and terrorism
Declan McCullagh [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote : On Wed, Sep 12, 2001 at 06:00:46PM +0200, Nomen Nescio wrote: Some terrorists have exactly this as their goal. They are hoping to trigger a counter-reaction, an over-reaction, by the authorities. They want to see a crackdown on liberties, a police state. This will weaken the enemy and demoralize him. It will increase hostility and make the population less willing to support the government. This is nonsense. I suspect the bin Laden want the U.S. to stop handing Israel billions of dollars a year in aid and weapons. Not bombing pharmecutical plants and lifting an embargo that kills hundreds of thousands (allegedly) of Iraqi women and children might be a nice move too. -Declan What they want is not what they will get. The US will be more united in aiding Israel, bombing industrial ( and other ) targets and starting new embargoes. Not only that, the approval of other nations will be more easily garnered. As dramatic as yesterday was, it was a poor move. Mike I still feel sad when I remember the videotapes of perfectly good B-52's being chopped.
Re: Naughty Journal Author Denied Plea Change
Well, I'm not totally retarded but I still don't always follow JYA that well. I'll keep trying. Did the OH guy have a lawyer? If so, did he follow the advice he was given? While I would not myself send the guy to prison for his writings however goofy or sick I may find them, a person who writes this stuff runs a serious risk of my interpreting even the slightest action on his part as intent and of getting himself gutted in the spot. The thoughts color the interpretation of the actions. Mike
Re: speech + action
Declan McCullagh wrote: On Fri, Aug 31, 2001 at 10:59:54AM -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sure, I mention it because despite its being non-functional and unpunishable it seemed to have been brought into the courtroom with the purpose of spicing up the case. Sure. If you commit unacceptable-to-the-gvt *actions* and also spend a lot of time talking about how government officials should be assassinated, you may reasonably expect those statements to be used against you during your trial. But that is a far cry from your earlier government-has-this-power position, from which you're now backtracking. -Declan Not so much backtracking as thinking out loud. Just musing on how the letter of the law, its constitutionality, enforcement and even the reasoning behind its creation are not always lined up so well. 18 U.S.C. 23 1 contains the seeds of the speech+action idea. Mike
speech + action
Tim, It's not easy to find great links but I still say that speech + action is something that a prosecutor can use to the disadvantage of the accused even if the speech is legal and the action appears to be ineffectual or undirected. Look at how AP was used. 18 U.S.C. 23 1 seems to link speech directly with the action of paramilitary training, even if there is no specific target. The speech portion of the offense enables a heavy response to the otherwise unpunishable action. Whether or not anyone has been convicted under this statute there it sits, ready to pounce. Admittedly these are weak cites but I do think the ( legal_but_unpopular_speech + unpunishable_action = crime ) idea is embodied in laws. I think eventually it'll somehow get extended to address the cyberterrordangerouslyeducatedchaosprogrammerdeaththreat that faces each and every freedom-loving, net-browsing Amurrican today! Maybe the pro bono brigade of the unorganized, non-organizational, casually associational, non-paramilitary, non-coding, non-militia, profusely verbal cypherpunks flying circus will chime in with some fun stuff. Mike http://www.sfgate.com/okc/winokur/0423.html http://www.vpc.org/studies/awapara.htm In 1986, the ADL formulated model state legislation that would ban paramilitary training aimed at provoking civil disorder.[104] In drafting the model bill, the ADL specifically stated that the statute must not violate First Amendment freedoms of speech and association. Another objective was to draft the statute narrowly so that it would not prohibit legitimate lawful activities such as target shooting and other sporting events. This was important, the ADL stated, for minimizing opposition to the bill by powerful special interest groups. [105] Laws based on the statute have passed in Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, and West Virginia.[106] http://www.channel4000.com/news/dimension/dimension-960425-133523.html http://www.hatemonitor.org/Research_articles/levin10.html - please read the last paragraph - keeping records of public speech becomes part of the procsecutor's toolbox - the speech seems to be a necessary component of the prosecution. The current federal paramilitary training statute, 18 U.S.C. 23 1, punishes only those who instruct others in fomenting violent civil disorder. Clearly, the statute should punish trainees as well. Similar statutes have been enacted in at least 24 states. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cacodes/pen/11460.html - Read this one and think about how speech could be used to facilitate indictment. http://www.adl.org/mwd/faq5.htm look at the end.
Re: speech + action
Tim May [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote : Which is why I asked for you some actual cases. I pointed out that--so far as I have heard--there have been _no_ prosecutions for paramilitary training. (There may have been some paramilitary types busted for firing AK-47s, for trespassing, whatever. This is why I listed these as exceptions.) You are right. Actual cases in which the bare-assed anti-paramilitary training laws are applied are in short supply. Generally they are associated with other infractions. Do note, however that there is a consistent thread of discussing the speech and the act i.e. the manual-based training regarding propane cylinders and the actual posession of same. The separate items are not puniushable but together seem to imply conspiracy to commit the act. http://nwcitizen.com/publicgood/reports/bailhear.html http://www.cnn.com/US/9607/02/arizona.militia/ Bell's AP was not one of the charges in his case. Sure, I mention it because despite its being non-functional and unpunishable it seemed to have been brought into the courtroom with the purpose of spicing up the case. No point in going round and round. I don't think even the U.S.G. has this power that you think it does, and I cite the non-prosecution of many right-wing groups as evidence. When busts have occurred, other alleged crimes were involved, like trespassing, violations of gun laws, etc. You are absolutely right. Where I think you misread me is this : I don't think that the government *has* this power, I think the way the laws are written and discussed, this degree of power is something for which they reach. Mike
Re: kuro5hin.org || How Home-Schooling Harms the Nation
Duncan Frissell wrote: On Thu, 30 Aug 2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: All I said was that actions can have unintended consequences. Make well considered choices. Look at the power industry deregulation in CA. Too much, too quickly and poorly crafted. By all means let's improve the educational opportunities in this country but not with some stooopid knee-jerk approach. Try and do it in one fell swoop based on right-wing war chants and I'll bet you do more harm than good. Since we don't depend on the government for food, steel, concrete, or medical care (60% private money not much actual government acre delivery); why would we think that teaching by government employees would be efficient. First, you depend more than you think on government actions for essentials even though they have private brand labels. Second, why do you think that when someone is a government employee they are automatically inferior to everyone in the private sector? That's irrational. I've talked with several friends about pooling efforts and creating a small private school. It ain't easy. It is something I would like to do. The financial reform part is probably hopeless in the short term. Once the hooks are into the green they don't like to let go. We can argue about payment later (although taxing the poor to pay for the college education of the rich seems unfair), but no rational person can argue that socialist provision of services is superior to market provision in case like this. What the fuck do I care how the services are provided? Show me the services and I'll rate them myself without the benefit of your ideological prerating system. That's what rational means. I do resent the financial handcuffs. This statement is neither entirely true nor entirely false but it sure as hell is a knee-jerk reaction to the issue. Sounds like the sort of foolishness that Rush Limbaugh vomits on the airwaves. I can pick any public school teacher at random and cross ex them on the stand and establish that they don't know diddly squat. The concept that one should institutionalize one's children for 8 hours a day so that public officials can attempt to modify their knowledge, understanding, and physical and psychological deportment is the worst kind of child abuse. At future war crimes trials America's parents will have to answer for their crimes. (For those of you who attended slave schools, that last is a joke.) Big challenge, most people don't know diddly squat. It may be just as difficult to find or create alternative schools that are affordable ( even with financial reforms ) and provide a good education as it is to improve what we have. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. And not everyone has the ability to home-school for various reasons. All I said was that I don't think the solution to the problem is as simple as throwing it all away. Can you seriously argue that governments do a better job of education or that it's safe to trust them with the souls (in the religious and non-religious sense) of the innocent. Do a better job of education than ...? As for the religious bit, they're easily as dangerous as governments. I usually get the new car before I get rid of the old one. All I said is that before you dismantle what you don't like start building the replacement, get a few prototypes to the working stage. Apart from everything else one can say, attending slave schools subjects the child and the family to the full force of government record keeping. If you are not on the dole and you have no children in slave schools, your chances of having any sort of interaction with the minions of the coercive state apparatus are very substantially reduced. Much safer. Moderately interesting point. While you claim to favor choices, you have just argued that these choices should not be available. Yes, just like the employment choice of slavery should not be available because it's wrong (at least within my proprietary community). Your point? Uh, nope, that's not what I said. I said I would be in favor of carefully considered proposals. Proposals that are fair to individuals and beneficial to the community. Again, the two goals are neither completely compatible nor mutually exclusive. What's the community got to do with it? I should give up money and children because people who are demonstrably stupider than I am think it would be a good idea? I don't give barbers who can't cut my hair the way I want my money or my hair. Why on earth should I do it to my children? You live in a community. Been to a third world country? I don't really want to see that here. In some ways we have progressed in that direction over the past few decades... One thing I disliked about CA's recent attempt at the voucher system is that it would let some people take out more than they put in. It was still a socialist program. Funny that, coming from a generally right-wing
Re: kuro5hin.org || How Home-Schooling Harms the Nation
To : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Learn to read poopyhead (isn't that now the official CP insult?). Actually, I think the currently hip term would be twit :-) Dunno, I've seen both recently. Just trying to live up to my slave training and conform. Look at the part you snipped : I'm not saying that it (vouchers or other defunding) should be ruled out but you should at least think about the implications a bit. Which, in context, is clearly a justification of what follows it. All I said was that actions can have unintended consequences. No, you did not. Nowhere was this said or implied. What you said is above, so there is no need to QUOTE it here as well. Here's the original : Another facet is that the well-to-do are attempting to remove their funds from the systems so they can use those funds to educate their children as they choose. A voucher system would surely benefit me financially. This is a reasonable desire but it will have a negative effect on the public school systems and a subsequent negative effect on the society as a whole. I know the masses are a bit thick but do you want them to be even thicker? And not all bright people come from priviledged backgrounds. Do you want to limit the opportunities for some of the brightest kids in the country before they've even had a chance? I'm not saying that it (vouchers or other defunding) should be ruled out but you should at least think about the implications a bit. I would summarize this paragraph, poorly written as it may be, as follows : 1) Some people wish to remove their monies from the public schools and make their own choices. 2) Here are some possible negative effects of that action. 3) I'm not against it but at least think about the implications before acting. Looks pretty simple to me. Doesn't really take a position other than fine, measure twice, cut once if you want my vote. I am not endowed with any expertise on this topic, so I cannot make any considered judgement on the example. Having thrown out the required caveat, it seems to me that the deregulation was only a small part of the problem. Of course, I am truly talking out of my ass on this topic, so I will leave it here... I'm no expert on the details either but it looks like a chant of deregulate didn't work out so well. Expect to hear more chants of deregulate and privatize when it comes to things like power and water. I'm not sure which I prefer, a corporate dictatorship or a police state. The fact that you consider this a knee jerk response does not make it so: you have no way of knowing how much or little I have looked into this topic. As someone who has had 4 kids in various public and private schools, as well as person who has personally attended two private and three public schools, I have had ample incentive to look at homeschooling when it began to cross my radar about three years ago. My beliefs regarding homeschooling are very definitely _not_ knee-jerk reactions. And my statements regarding the state of the public schools is from personal first hand experience, both as a student, and as a parent. Try and do it in one fell swoop based on right-wing war chants and I'll bet you do more harm than good. What right wing war chants? Where the hell do you get the idea I'm a right wing type of guy? Just because I believe that home schooling is a Good Thing and that the public schools are a life threatening repository of brainwashing and bad karma? Last I heard, it took a LOT more than this to qualify as right wing. I know the masses are a bit thick but do you want them to be even thicker? To be frank, sending kids to public schools is practically *requiring* that they become thick, merely in order to _survive_. This statement is neither entirely true nor entirely false but it sure as hell is a knee-jerk reaction to the issue. Again with the knee jerk label. If it's a view you disagree with, it's a knee-jerk reaction, huh? Sounds like the sort of foolishness that Rush Limbaugh vomits on the airwaves. I wouldn't know, I don't have much use for Rush, and have only heard *about* his show. However, we again see the disparaging of view with which you disagree as terms such as foolishness. This position is hardly persuasive. Perhaps you can enlighten us as to WHY it is so foolish? Perhaps you can trade some FIRST HAND information you have on the state of the public schools, so that we may more readily examine the ISSUES before us, and not your assertions that all positions you disfavor are knee jerk reactions? I would say that I use the term knee-jerk and right-wing war chants as labels for the idea that all public schools are somehow seriously inferior to private schools or home schooling. Maybe the term knee-jerk is as poor as the idea of lumping all public schools into a single assessment. Furthermore, I think if you read what I've said you would not find that I flat out disagree with your attitudes about education but
Re: The Privacy/Untraceability Sweet Spot
Declan McCullagh [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote : On Tue, Aug 28, 2001 at 05:28:24PM -0700, Ray Dillinger wrote: For Tim: Why are you attempting to provoke public discussion about things that could get people jailed or worse for discussing them? It's interesting to see you post your sweet spot message and then call someone *else* an agent provocateur. I suspect Bear has good intentions and may even honestly believe this, but it is nevertheless misleading. Talking about the political implications of technologies -- and taking no actions! -- is protected by the full force of the First Amendment. Johnson got in trouble for allegedly making direct threats of physical violence. Bell is in jail for most of the next decade because he crossed state lines and showing up at homes of current or former federal agents. It is true that the Feds are monitoring cypherpunks closely, and it is also probably true that without the stalking charges, they may have found other charges to levy against Bell. It is also true that if you embrace AP-type concepts, they may pay closer attention to you. But even given the tattered First Amendment, there is still a difference between speech and action. -Declan Bear may not be as far off the mark as you think. Remember back when the hot news of the day was militia groups how advocating the violent overthrow of the government and playing soldier in the woods could constitute intent? Can that twisted reasoning be applied to advocating the use of code to obsolete the government and then actually creating code? Should the political speech and coding action be separated? Is participating in both risky? I consider code to be publishing and speech but look at some of the recent GRUsa activity that addresses that issue. Get ready for to code is to act. Whoops, it's here. Just title your application Espionage Communications Suite with Government Overthrow Features and package the speech and the act up nice and neat for the GRU. This can't really be the case, can it? Mike This little gizmo is not new but I like it and it's only $30 at an ATT Wireless store. It looks like it would be a nice companion ( assuming one could make a very tiny uP-based adapter ) for an iPaq. I find those folding kybs to be ugly. http://www.ericsson.com/infocenter/news/The_Chatboard.html
Re: News: U.S. May Help Chinese Evade Net Censorship
Faustine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote : Adam wrote: On Thu, Aug 30, 2001 at 10:02:54AM -0700, Tim May wrote: | Alas, the marketing of such dissident-grade untraceability is | difficult. Partly because anything that is dissident-grade is also | pedophile-grade, money launderer-grade, freedom fighter-grade, | terrorist-grade, etc. I think a larger problem is that we don't know how to build it. And as long as you have companies like ZeroKnowledge who are willing/gullible/greedy/just plain fucking stupid enough to sell their betas to the NSA, you never will. ~Faustine. Holy faulty logic Batman! This has to be one of the more doofy things I've heard. It's right up there with the EMI Grounding Strap thread. What're you going to do, sell a product in CompUSA with instructions to the cashiers that the NSA is not allowed to buy it? If the NSA is willing to pay for some software that's great. They've got as much right to buy it as anyone else. As long as they obey the law! and don't reverse engineer it, let them share in financing further development. I would find it more relevant to know which commercial product designs have been influenced by which non-commercial agencies. oy g'vay ( sp? ) Mike
Re: The Privacy/Untraceability Sweet Spot
Declan McCullagh wrote: On Thu, Aug 30, 2001 at 12:42:24PM -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bear may not be as far off the mark as you think. Remember back when the hot news of the day was militia groups how advocating the violent overthrow of the government and playing soldier in the woods could constitute intent? Can that twisted reasoning be applied to advocating the use of code to obsolete the government and then actually creating code? Should the political speech and coding action be separated? Is participating in both risky? I consider code to be publishing and speech but look at some of the recent GRUsa activity that addresses that issue. Can you get put in jail for writing code? Sure. Just ask Dmitry Sklyarov. Or read the old crypto regs. Or write a bot that posts child porn and start it going. Lots of ways to run afoul of the law -- and that's in the U.S., where we may even be a bit more liberal about such things, and where some circuits even believe source code is free speech. But it does not logically follow that just because you code something, such as an anonymous mix or similar system, that you have broken the law. In fact, you probably haven't. -Declan Agreed, but the parallel is noticeable. Mike
Re: kuro5hin.org || How Home-Schooling Harms the Nation
David Honig [EMAIL PROTECTED] : At 09:13 AM 8/29/01 -0500, Jim Choate wrote: http://www.Kuro5hin.org/story/2001/8/28/1868/27867 I've been reading the cover article in Time magazine about home schooling, and it makes me wonder. One of the primary questions the article poses is this: Home schooling may turn out better students, but does it create better citizens? Also present is the accusation that home schooling threatens the current public education system: Home schooling is a social threat to public education, says Chris Lubienski, who teaches at Iowa State University's college of education. It is taking some of the most affluent and articulate parents out of the system. These are the parents who know how to get things done with administrators. I think he's probably wrong here - I would guess that the most affluent and articulate parents send their kids to private schools because they're too busy keeping the lifestyle financed to run a school or realize that they would probably suck at it. If I win the Lotto I'll consider it. I'll risk $1 today. Funny that, a State employee putting home education down. Funny that, the only people I've ever met who were home schooling their kids were fundamentalist christians who objected to all kinds of perceived immorality and wrong teaching like sex ed and evolution. In my estimation they were poorly equipped to give their children a good education. I have no doubt that there are many exceptions to what I've seen but those who will do a really fine job of educating their children are probably in the minority of homeschoolers. In any case, the notion that parents should sacrifice their children for the good of society is abhorrent. You mean like when we send young males to war so the ones who stay home will have less competition? Keep an open mind about the home schooling/private schooling vs. public schooling discussion. One facet that I see is that fundamentalists via a strong influence on the republican party are trying to divert public funds to religious organizations. My reading of the 1st is that the state may not establish a religion. Giving money to a religious organization is tantamount to establishment. My reading of the 1st also leads me to the conclusion that the tax-exempt status of the churches is wrong. They should pay their fair share of the fucking property taxes like every other victim. Another facet is that the well-to-do are attempting to remove their funds from the systems so they can use those funds to educate their children as they choose. A voucher system would surely benefit me financially. This is a reasonable desire but it will have a negative effect on the public school systems and a subsequent negative effect on the society as a whole. I know the masses are a bit thick but do you want them to be even thicker? And not all bright people come from priviledged backgrounds. Do you want to limit the opportunities for some of the brightest kids in the country before they've even had a chance? I'm not saying that it (vouchers or other defunding) should be ruled out but you should at least think about the implications a bit. Aimee style question : How many of you were home schooled? How many went to private schools? How many went to public schools? I would guess roughly 1% 9% 90% I wish there were more ( and better ) educational choices and that those choices were reflected reasonably in the financial systems but every proposal I've seen so far sucks moose bladder through a hairy straw. Mike
2:3 ain't bad
It remains a challenge to identify groups that are both (A) wealthy, (B) in need of anonymity technologies, and (C) morally acceptable to support. Freedom fighters don't fit all that well, in today's world. Corporate Executives A, B, sort of C
Re: Not black helicopters, but dark green ones ( Off Topic )
http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyKey=64513category=C What was she so afraid of? Aerial rape? I was just pissed off when the shitheads would fly over as low as they could. I've seen A10's, helicopters and fighters. They're really annoying when you're trying to cast a fly and enjoy some serene isolation. They should test their shit in Macedonia or Nevada. Next time I'll bring my particle beam weapon and scorch their paint a bit. There are three bases that I know of - Fort Drum, Griffiss Air Base and Plattsburgh Air Base. Fort Drum is busy. The latter two have been shut down but I think there is still some research going on at RADC/Griffiss - ( http://www.beardsley.com/portfolio/military/romelab/rl.html ). They may still fly some stuff out of there to test communications, mapping systems and sensors. I think the runways are still maintained. I've been on some fairly remote lakes up there. Go look for the West Canada Lakes on a map. It's really beautiful and in spite of the acid rain from the polluting midwest ( including Ontario ) there are some excellent brookies around. In other areas you can find muskies, pike, bass, raindows and landlocked salmon. The acidified dead lakes are truly sorry looking. This concludes the Adirondack solo backpacker report. Mike
Re: Testing RF Shielding
http://www.testequipmentdepot.com/avcom/psa-65Cspecanal.htm Not cheap but within reach. If someone gets serious I could get advice about equipment and methods from a friend who did this sort of testing for years. If you don't have a Faraday cage and a spectrum analyzer and you still want a rough idea of how noisy your device is you can tune an AM radio to a vacant space between stations, crank up the volume, and listen for your device's noise. Turn it on and off, press some buttons, you can actually make some pretty good correlations between what you hear and what your equipment is doing. There will probably be some nice configurable SW radios soon. I don't know about sensitivity or noise problems that might go along with this but it seems pretty interesting. Maybe someone who knows more could comment. Mike
Shielding
Lots of shielding products are available. Whole rooms : http://www.emctest.com/ A complete test setup : http://www.emctest.com/onsale.cfm Cu tape : http://www.2spi.com/catalog/spec_prep/5tapes.html Cu foil, cheap, no adhesive : http://www.glassmart.com/regular_foil.asp Cu Sheet : http://hi-one.com/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?ID=2078 Ag paint : http://www.2spi.com/catalog/spec_prep/spinstr.html All kinds of ferrites can be found : http://www.fair-rite.com/ Knock yerself out. Focus on the keyboard and the display.
Shielding
One simple comment. Below. Bill Stewart wrote : At 04:45 AM 08/23/2001 -0700, David Honig wrote: Faustine, look up Faraday cages, TEMPEST, and search the archives. As if you didn't know. Succinctly, the electron gas in metals shields you from the electromagnetic antics of distant, radiating electrons, by shorting the ripples in the aether they make -and this shielding makes it harder to listen to your emissions, too. The problem is that cables and ventilation vents are antennae, for sending and receiving both. Testing is key. If you don't measure, you don't know. This stuff was a *lot* easier when computers were slower. I used to test my TEMPEST room at 450MHz, since that was high enough frequency to cover any realistic level of emissions from the upper harmonics from the VAX, and it was also a short enough wavelength that leaks were pretty detectable. It doesn't take much to get a leak - copper foil on a joint wearing out, or the copper mesh we'd stuff inside gaskets getting set unevenly. The waveguides we used for fiber or air vents were typically 1/8 inch wide and an inch or two deep - and if you pushed a paperclip halfway through you'd twang the leak meter. Well, that was fine for computers that were around 10MHz. These days, when 1GHz is slow, there's tons of stray energy above that, and that stuff is much more penetrating, plus you've got all the The skin depth is proportional to f^(-0.5). The skin depth for Cu at 100MHz is about 0.00026. At 1600MHZ it should be ~0.65 I think maybe 'sneakier' ( because of its smaller wavelength ) is closer than 'more penetrating' ( it is actually less penetrating in a conductor ). Mike 100 and 133MHz memory and disk bus stuff. Fortunately, the equipment runs at much lower power levels; you can run on batteries instead of 208-volt 3-phase (:-), but I'm still glad I don't have to design a room or even a box for that level of tightness.
re: p-punks
OK Links. http://aerial.evsc.virginia.edu/~jlm8h/class/quant1.html http://www.phy.duke.edu/Courses/100/lectures/Statistics/Sta.html#photon http://newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy99/phy99525.htm
Re: food fo thought
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote : On 14 Aug 2001, at 17:34, Gabriel Rocha wrote: Taming the Web By Charles C. Mann September 2001 Information wants to be free. The Internet can't be controlled. We've heard it so often that we sometimes take for granted that it's true. But THE INTERNET CAN BE CONTROLLED, and those who argue otherwise are hastening the day when it will be controlled too much, by the wrong people, and for the wrong reasons. I think we've all seen this type of argument before. Interestingly enough, the article offers no support whatsoever for any part of this other than the the internet can be controlled part. What dire consequences will come from circumventing bad laws is never addressed in this type of article, at least not in any that I've read. And with good reason: congress has already conclusively demenostrated that they do not have the wisdom and knowledge to make good laws for cyberspace, no way, no how. So let's just take a look at the arguments for the assertion that the internet can be controlled. The form argument seems to be listing myths followed by refutation by anecdote. I find this a particularly unpersuasive form of argument. I'll go into a little more dtail, probably more than is actually merited. Myth #1: The internet is too international to be controlled. Refuting anecdote: Swapnet is allegedly based in St. Kitts and Nevis, non-signatories to the WIPO. However, because of limited bandwidth going to the carribean island, their big servers are actually situated in Virginia. I'm unimpressed. as the article points out, access to the islands is being upgraded, and besides, even a relatively slow connection to an uncensorable site can be extremely useful. For example, you could have your legally secure slow connection have pointers to the location of files rather than the files themselves. Myth #2: The Net is too Interconnected to Control Refuting Anectdote: Gnutella doesn't scale well, with Bearshare the peers aren't really equal, and Freenet is unsearchable. The point here is that the majority of lusers still have dialup connections, and are in no position to offer useful services, even if they were willing to. First off, the number of people with persistent, higher speed connections is rapidly increasing and second, this ain't a democracy. It may be true that you would only have to shut down 5-10% or so of Bearshare's clients to make the remaining network virtually useless, but I think that's still an enormous number of machines. Myth #3: The net is too filled with Hackers to control Refuting Assertion: You can build controls into the hardware, and that can't be hacked. Well, maybe, but that requires people to go out and buy their own straightjackets. Also, it's importnat to remember that information isn't hardware, it's bits. It just takes one person to post a cracked file somewhere, and then it doesn't matter whether the attempts to restrict copying are implemented in hardware or software, because the file is no longer recognized as being copy protected. I could rant on, but all this is really only addressing what I consider to be the minor assertion, which is that you'e going to lose sooner or later, so you might as well give up. The more important assertiion (IMO) is that the sooner you give up, the better it'll go for you. I haven't seen any support at all offered for this position, and I think the only appropriate reply to it is, Bullshit. George One mistake the author makes is that he seems to think that there are only anarchist hackers out there who should forget the hacking thing and become lobbyists. There are already people doing that work who are probably better at it than 99/100 hackers. There may be a need for more people and resources to lobby for rational laws but the space is not empty. Another mistake is in lumping the private uses of the net in with the commercial. I doubt that the personal uses can ever be fully subjugated to commercial needs. However, I think it's pretty clear that a great deal more could be controlled and punished than is currently. It'll be like the drug war : the first 2% or so costs USD25B to get off the streets. What will the last 2% cost? USD25B? Not likely. Draw the $ vs. %control curve. The entire US GNP is not enough. Is the article Total Bullshit? No, but I'd put on my Wellies. Mike Anyone have any strong opinions on laptops as far as reliability and Linux-friendliness? I like HP and Toshiba at this point.
Next...
Quite a collection : callous indifference to human life disregard of justice carelessness neglect of duty gross incompetence. donut-chomping incompetent Barney-Fife-clone imbecile third-rate underfunded knuckledraggers commie symps panda huggers corruption laziness irresponsibility sheer incompetence is fairly uniform Colorful but irrelevant phraseology. The behavior of dehumanizing the enemy is unremarkable. Get on with the work. Design for the worst case. Mike
Re: Traceable Infrastructure is as vulnerable as traceable messages.
I'm quite aware of the attack. It's not guaranteed successful yet. If you've paid attention to our lawyers recently it sounds like the battle is sporadic and the outcome mixed. Until the heavy hand wipes out remailers the fate of an individual message is interesting. So as of even date being able to assign IP addresses to persons and remailer nodes is not equivalent to compromising the communications. It's the best solution available today isn't it? Ray Dillinger wrote: On Fri, 3 Aug 2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Nested encryption protects a subverted node from being able to trace the entire chain in one fell swoop. Take your focus off the individual message. Okay? Now look at the system, the infrastructure, that you need to send that message anonymously. It relies on identifiable remops existing at known addresses. Known to the people sending messages == known to the cops. If the law wants to take this thing down, they will not be attacking the strongest point -- ie, trying to trace individual messages. Instead, they will attack the weakest point -- trying to drive remailer operators out of business and thus destroy the infrastructure you need. That is the threat model I'm concerned about, and given that network monitoring is now automatable and cheap, it is entirely do-able. As long as there is one uncompromised node in a chain subversion doesn't guarantee a matchup of from and to but it improves the odds. So what? A move by the g8 to protect the global infrastructure of the Internet, (polspeak for protecting their ability to control what the sheep think) followed by laws passed in individual countries, would force remops to operate solely in rogue states, and messages to and from them could be screened out pretty simply. Bear
Re: Traceable Infrastructure is as vulnerable as traceable messages.
Ray Dillinger wrote: On Fri, 3 Aug 2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I like the idea of making a remailer part of a worm but it might be just as well to make it an inherent part of a product since people will attempt to eradicate a worm. And succeed. How many copies of melissa have you seen lately? Coding a remailer, *and* coding a worm, for just one week's worth of play before they stomp it, is not worthwhile. Bear I think the well behaved worm prescribed by Tim might live longer since I read that as unobtrusive and generally benign but for some tolerable amount of bandwidth. Still, it would fall short of the effect you'd get if it were in a product that every teenager on the planet wanted to run.
Another Part of the Game ( or not )
Maybe it doesn't matter if the missile defense system that is ultimately deployed ( or not ) works ( or not ) as long as many billions are spent in the process. Charging straight to the techie issues like bulls for the red cape and missing the proud, smiling matador - Ole!
Re: Criminalizing crypto criticism
I keep seeing words like bona fide and legitimate used as modifiers for cryptographic researcher. The DMCA states : (3)(B) whether the person is engaged in a legitimate course of study, is employed, or is appropriately trained or experienced, in the field of encryption technology; and Isn't self-taught a legitimate course of study? Abraham Lincoln was largely self-taught. If a teenager, who has clearly not had the opportunity to amass much in the way of official credentials, can break CSS hasn't he engaged in a legitimate course of study and isn't he appropriately experienced in the field of encryption technology? The modifiers are meaningless as is 3B. Why do we even discuss the damn thing. It's just another rathole to dive into. It's wrong. We know it's wrong. Short of nuclear blackmail Congress will not change it and the courts will not overturn it. I'll let the lawyers and those with deep pockets fight that battle. About the only good I might be able to do is to contribute to enhancing the means for people to exchange and distribute proscribed information with impunity.
MBNA
Seems like a regular herd of senior FBI guys wind up at MBNA when they're ready to amass some capitol for retirement. What are the origins of the company? http://www.cptryon.org/compassion/spr99/fbi.html http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RuMills/message/367 http://www.lineofduty.com/blotter/mar00/mar00/mar11-21/32000-33.htm http://fyi.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1997/12/09/kallstrom/
Spoliation, escrows, courts etc.
I think there are several actions and states mixed up here and it makes it difficult to extract the most pertinent opinions. I'm as guilty as anyone of mixing the stuff together. I'll try to be more specific this time. Let's start with the type of information the TX reporter might have. This information might be divisible into four classes : A) documents freely given by their owners B) documents of dubious provenance C) documentary works D) editorial works For information let's stick with C) and D). No real need to muddy the waters. The sense of outrage is most keen when it comes to works created by the reporter. There are a fairly small set of states to be accounted for : 1) unaware that the information could become the object of a court action 2) aware that the information could become the object of a court action 3) aware that the information was in fact the object of a court action Now my sense of right and wrong says states 1) and 2) are equivalent and that only state 3), awareness of a subpoena, is potentially relevant but our relevant pro bono guy says not. There are a few actions that are of interest i) disclosure ii) destruction iii) revocable storage of copies iv) public distribution of copies v) irrevocable storage of copies Whether it was clear or not, and despite it's being a frequent topic, I don't think anyone was all that interested in the destruction of evidence or the withholding of information, so that leaves iii), iv) and v). Another frequent element of discussions here is the ease and accuracy with which digital information can be copied and distributed but I think most would agree that iii) is not interesting legally or technically since like i) and ii) it comes down to can you conceal information or not - a plain old ordinary fight. We're really left with three states : Perception and awareness of the court's degree of interest none, potential, forceful and two actions : irrevocable storage of a copy as public or private that are interesting. Narrowed down in this way my sense of right and wrong says the author of the information can do as they choose and should not have to rely on officially approved excuses to avoid incarceration. I feel this way pretty much across the board for all types of works but for the moment let's stick with non-software items such as a reporter is likely to author. It seems as though, in the interest of justice, a court should not have the power to confiscate or suppress an author's own work. Examine it prior to publication? Possibly, but seriously debatable. Aren't there any limits or controls on the actions of the court with respect to an author? Aren't there some things that a court is simply not allowed to do and will never even attempt? Is the only recourse in the case of genuine abuse a long expensive losing battle against the forces of darkness? To allow a court to punish the publication or distribution of one's own works, even under subpoena, seems like an open invitation to abuse. Oddly, thinking about this topic has made me remember some interesting discussions with the person responsible for forcibly shutting down the radio stations, television stations and newspapers as part of a ( successful and longstanding ) coup. It's a bit scary. I don't think the power to destory^H^H^Hroy the press should be a fundamental part of the structure here. Maybe we accept the actions of a police state more peacefully when they're neatly clothed in formalities and done by baby steps but that doesn't alter their underlying nature. As with a coup, let's require full-blown military intervention to shut down the press. At least then we'll have no doubts about where we stand. Mike BTW - it will be interesting to actually find out detailed facts in the case of this TX reporter. I'm sure Jim will graciously forward a link. Not being intimately familiar with the spec of freenet I can't really comment on that aspect or what a court will consider impossible. What will not amuse a court is the appearance of an ex ante concealment or disclosure in anticipation of court action. If it looks like you knew it was going to be a court issue and you put it on freenet for that purpose, you're in trouble. Not only that but if you encrypt the stuff and it doesn't appear to be recoverable it almost sounds tantamount to destruction of evidence or spoliation (much more serious). (The intentional destruction of evidence... The destruction, or the significant and meaningful alteration of a document or instrument...) I've never seen a case play out like that but I would certainly make the argument as a prosecutor. Encrypting the stuff sure _looks_ like spoliation, particularly if it seemed likely that the evidence would be the subject of a judicial action. Knew or should have known will likely be the standard with respect to the stuff being the subject of judicial action and they can use actions to demonstrate intent. In this light freenet
Re: Criminalizing crypto criticism
I'm really not completely clued-in to all of the publishing options but my gut instinct says that the more rapid and widespread the dispersal the better. The originator of proscribed information needs to be anonymous but it seems that if the recipients are many and diverse then the level of guilt associated with reception can be ameliorated. A mixmaster chain firing the info off into a whole shitload of lists looks like a pretty good way to ensure that information is not made extinct. If a DeCSS source+bin zip had been anonymously mailed to 40 million people the terrain for the legal fight might have been different. I think JQPublic hasn't yet grasped the absurdity of illegal information and might react unpredictably if told that possessing or forwarding certain e-mails was a crime. Non-techie people I've spoken with about the state of affairs flat out didn't believe me. Eugene Leitl wrote: On Fri, 27 Jul 2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Unless I'm mistaken a node keeps a reference ( even if only temorarily ) to the originating node when data is added. So if I publish sooper-infringer.tar.gz and the neighboring node that gets it is a narc I'm screwed. Identify your dissidents and put in informants as Aye, that's the rub. Even if you're acting as a relay, even if you're just serving out a sliver of the content, even if it's sitting there encrypted on your hard drive, even if it's ephemeral -- if you serve a packet (while not spoofing your IP), and legislation makes that prosecutable, yer goose is cooked (Your Honour, he's a part of a global terrorist network!). I'm not sure how you can prevent that, apart from the spoofing or legislation changing business. Oh, and only making links into legal compartments guaranteeing maximum persecution friction. So, if your traffic is unfilterable (it looks like a SSL session), and it comes from Cuba, the guilty party seems to be more or less immune. neighbors. Admittedly I didn't read everything yet. What did I miss?
Re: DOJ jails reporter, Ashcroft allows more journalist subpoenas
Declan, The larger problem notwithstanding there's at least one little bit of language in this piece that is odd : He said the government is seeking all of Leggett's material, including all originals and copies. Even if we make the extreme assumption that there is some pressing and justifiable need for federal prosecutors to have access to her materials how do you explain the need to possess all originals and copies? It doesn't make sense. Why should she not be allowed to keep a copy of her work? How does the existence of an uncontrolled copy lower the value of the original in the case of a recording? Or in the case of her own notes why would a copy not suffice. Looks like a reporter ( or anyone else for that matter ) should keep well hidden backups of their notes and work so that they can comply with Napolean complexes, fishing expeditions and spin control operations and not lose their life's work. Mike
Re: DOJ jails reporter, Ashcroft allows more journalist subpoenas
Black Unicorn wrote: Looks like a reporter ( or anyone else for that matter ) should keep well hidden backups of their notes and work so that they can comply with Napolean complexes, fishing expeditions and spin control operations and not lose their life's work. No. Well hidden backups would put the reporter in a position of contempt, committing obstruction of justice or perjury. Better to escrow such documents with an attorney in a jurisdiction not likely to cooperate with the United States. (I can suggest several to interested parties privately). That is one method of well hidden How about placing blocks of data on a safe site? A petit Napoleon would be able to subpoena a plaintext copy of the data and possibly make a fight about getting the keys but would not be able to deprive the owner of the data. That is, to me, the strangest and most disturbing part of this story considering how easy and cheap it is to make decent copies of almost anything written or taped. Why should an owner not be allowed to retain a copy? Mike
Subject: CDR: Re: Weird message from someone named NIPC
Declan, Here's a #4 #4 - NIPC is looking for high profile missions to back up up next year's request for a massive appropriations increase and is hoping to stir up the malcontents with incendiary leaks authenticated by a press release about NIPC internal virus troubles. The negative effects of the current report about internal virus infections will more than be offset by the praise when this sophisticated strategy is revealed. :Occam() it and place your bets $20 on #1 to win There seem to be three explanations. 1. Tim is having some fun with us. It would be easy for him to do so, and NIPC (an FBI subagency) has been in the news today, with a WSJ article this morning posted to the list and a Senate hearing this afternoon. Tim's written similar things before and posted them straight-faced: http://www.politechbot.com/p-01332.html 2. Someone is spoofing NIPC email and having fun with Tim. 3. This really did originate from within NIPC and is a major cypherpunk intelligence find. The WSJ article (http://www.politechbot.com/p-02306.html) says NIPC has been hit by Sircam, which scans hard drives for email addresses in documents and mail archives, according to descriptions I've read. Reports say Sircam emails working documents (in My Documents or whatnot folder) and this could have happened. -Declan
Re: Criminalizing crypto criticism + 802.11b access
Declan, It's pretty bad. The exemption (2) only applies if the intent is to advance the state of the art in general or in the development of products. The means to negate the exemption look like they're deeply embedded in the code. (2)(A) is certainly easy to meet - woohoo. (2)(B) is not too bad unless someone decides that your intent goes beyond pure research (3)(A) makes it easier to call the intent impure, especially if the dissemination is general rather than confined to the guild (3)(B) is another thin end of the wedge to get a guild system up and running (3)(C) is not too bad unless it is determined that partial disclosure might indicate a non-research intent (4)(A) is redundant (4)(B) looks like it can be used to severely restrict dissemination to anyone not closely associated with the researcher All in all it's pretty shitty because it looks ( to a non-lawyer ) like it defines the exemptions in such a way as to make it easy to prosectute a person who decides to follow their curiosity and distributes widely. What the fuck is a legitimate course of study? Whatever congress and your local prosecutor say it is, right? The carpetbaggers are in control. Rapid, broad, anonymous publishing is the only way to fight it. Re: the Starbucks/MS Wallet access points - big surprise. Who here expected the ideal gateway for anonymity to be handed to us on a silver plater? Wilde was right and life is looking very much like a Gibson novel. Mike On Thu, Jul 26, 2001 at 10:53:02PM -0400, David Jablon wrote: With these great new laws, there is no longer any risk of being legally criticised for using even the most glaringly flawed cryptography -- just use it for Copy Protection, and TADA! Negative criticism magically disappears. Almost by definition. Flaws can only be exposed by those who won't show their work, or from anonymous sources, who nobody will trust without confirmation [...] [...] We seem to be entering the twilight zone -- the end of an exciting, but brief era -- of public cryptography. The DMCA may be bad, but it's not *that* bad. It contains a broad prohibition against circumvention (No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access) and then has a bunch of exceptions. One of those -- and you can thank groups like ACM for this, if my legislative memory is correct -- explicitly permits encryption research. You can argue fairly persuasively that it's not broad enough, and certainly 2600 found in the DeCSS case that the judge wasn't convinced by their arguments, but at least it's a shield of sorts. See below. -Declan PS: Some background on Sklyarov case: http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=sklyarov PPS: Note you only get the exemption if you make a good faith effort to obtain authorization before the circumvention. Gotta love Congress, eh? http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c105:H.R.2281.ENR: `(g) ENCRYPTION RESEARCH- `(1) DEFINITIONS- For purposes of this subsection-- `(A) the term `encryption research' means activities necessary to identify and analyze flaws and vulnerabilities of encryption technologies applied to copyrighted works, if these activities are conducted to advance the state of knowledge in the field of encryption technology or to assist in the development of encryption products; and `(B) the term `encryption technology' means the scrambling and descrambling of information using mathematical formulas or algorithms. `(2) PERMISSIBLE ACTS OF ENCRYPTION RESEARCH- Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), it is not a violation of that subsection for a person to circumvent a technological measure as applied to a copy, phonorecord, performance, or display of a published work in the course of an act of good faith encryption research if-- `(A) the person lawfully obtained the encrypted copy, phonorecord, performance, or display of the published work; `(B) such act is necessary to conduct such encryption research; `(C) the person made a good faith effort to obtain authorization before the circumvention; and `(D) such act does not constitute infringement under this title or a violation of applicable law other than this section, including section 1030 of title 18 and those provisions of title 18 amended by the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986. `(3) FACTORS IN DETERMINING EXEMPTION- In determining whether a person qualifies for the exemption under paragraph (2), the factors to be considered shall include-- `(A) whether the information derived from the encryption research was disseminated, and if so, whether it was disseminated in a manner reasonably calculated to advance the state of knowledge or development of encryption technology, versus whether it was disseminated in a manner that facilitates infringement under this title or a violation of applicable law other than this
Re: Criminalizing crypto criticism + 802.11b access
Un-yikes yourself. Since the mail goes to a list I wasn't necessarily asking you to do the job - I'm interested enough that if tips filter in I'll check them out and package them nicely in an FAQ. That is assuming one does not already exist. Mike Declan McCullagh wrote: Yikes, editors pay me a few dollars a word to research and write this kinda stuff. Why don't you ask for tips and compile them, if you're interested? -Declan At 10:15 AM 7/27/01 -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Declan, What are today's options for anonymous publication? A good summary might be instructive. Regards, Mike
Re: Criminalizing crypto criticism
freenet. Unless I'm mistaken a node keeps a reference ( even if only temorarily ) to the originating node when data is added. So if I publish sooper-infringer.tar.gz and the neighboring node that gets it is a narc I'm screwed. Identify your dissidents and put in informants as neighbors. Admittedly I didn't read everything yet. What did I miss? Mike Eugene Leitl wrote: On Fri, 27 Jul 2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What are today's options for anonymous publication? A good summary might be instructive. Is there anything new on the horizont, apart from the canonical two? http://freenet.sourceforge.net/ http://www.mojonation.net/
Re: Criminalizing crypto criticism + 802.11b access
I think a lot of the flaws with the DMCA could be fixed by allowing an exemption for a notice period -- one year after you notify them that their crypto is broken, they've had enough time to fix it -- and if they haven't fixed it, they deserve what they get. Bear Not acceptable. DMCA is too one-sided. It is an unjust evolutionary dead-end. How would this play out : Hello Clay and Hay Brick Corp, sorry to rain on your hacienda but I've figured out a way to compromise your new eContent system. You might as well tell us, we'll have the FBI kick your ass if you tell anyone else. It was a lot of work and I'm really clever, I should get paid for my efforts. Sounds like cyber-terrorist threats to me. You'd better factor the likely scenarios into your backup policy. I suppose the only bright spot is that 99.99% of the content that is protected by DMCA is not worth consuming in the first place. Mike
Re: Criminalizing crypto criticism
George wrote : `(3) FACTORS IN DETERMINING EXEMPTION- In determining whether a person qualifies for the exemption under paragraph (2), the factors to be considered shall include-- `(A) whether the information derived from the encryption research was disseminated, and if so, whether it was disseminated in a manner reasonably calculated to advance the state of knowledge or development of encryption technology, versus whether it was whether it was disseminated in a manner that facilitates infringement under this title or a violation of applicable law other than this section, including a violation of privacy or breach of security; -Declan I've been rereading this a bunch of times trying to figure out what, if anything, it's supposed to mean. I've come up with two slightly different interpretations: 1) If you release your results at a university-sponsored conference you're an exempt researcher, but if you release identical results at Defcon you're a criminal. 2) Anyone with the financial resources or legal background to get this law overturned on Constitutional grounds is not to be prosecuted in the first place. I think 2 is actually the more accurate reading. George It's pretty odd. That is to say, aren't most academic results eventually available to the world at large? The more interesting or applicable they are the faster they spread. So what's the difference where and how the information is released? It is either part of the public forum or it is not. Are we going to split academic publications into two classes now? Will you need a license to hear certain lectures and be prohibited from passing on what you've learned? (3)(A) is an unfairly arbitrary criterion for assigning criminal culpability. Also, what is the relevance of the or a violation of applicable law other than this section, including a violation of privacy or breach of security bit? Are they trying to apply the DMCA to anyone who publishes information that makes it easier to develop exploits against OS bugs? That piece seems out of place. There must be a reason it was included. As for George's #2, DMCA does have that flavor. I suppose that it will retain its value as a means for intimidation, Constitutional or otherwise, as long as it is not tested. Then there's the nightmare scenario in which it is upheld. Let's not go there. DMCA is ***not that bad***, at least there is a research exemption but if you want to be a pessimist it looks as though you could be screwed for communicating your knowledge to anyone but a partner or the owner of the copyright protection system. Free labor for the copyright holder. The satisfaction of a job well done for the laboror. Somehow the information derived from study belongs to the owner of the thing studied. Why not apply the same principal to the studies of the human genome? As for Mr. Felton's run-in with this abomination, did he sign any sort of contract with the music guys to get the materials he needed to do his work? That might change how we view his situation relative to DMCA. Mike
Attention to detail lacking
Jim, I think you often don't word things carefully enough. The resulting discussions get pointless in a big hurry. The optics used for focusing are NOT mirrors, they are (hopefully) transparent at the frequency under use. A mirror on the other hand is required to be OPAQUE with respect to transmission, we want full, 100%, reflectivity. That means that every photon that hits that mirror interacts, loses some energy, and gets re-emitted. ^ Are you implying that the wavelength for incident photons changes upon interaction with the mirror? The energy loss at the mirror is lost photons not altered wavelengths. The lost photons have varying fates. You stated that every photon interacts, loses energy and is re-emitted. I think the reflected beam has the same wavelength as the incident beam. Your blurb about absorption and cascades is only true for some fraction of the lost photons that constitute the inefficiency of the mirror. Others have a different fate. Maybe that's what you meant but you did say every photon. And here's an exchange with Tim : At 6:30 PM -0500 7/24/01, Jim Choate wrote: And these are reasonably low power lasers... http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/SSC/IJSSE/issue1/unwin/unwin.html The simple fact is that the thermodynamic impact of a laser beam that is several feet across and emitting more photons than the surface of the sun will not be easy to reflect unless immense cooling is taken. Cost/weight factors alone argue it in the negative. More photons than the surface of the sun for HOW LONG? A minute? A second? A millisecond? A microsecond? You confuse fluence with flux, a classic mistake. (A pulse brighter than the sun but lasting only milliseconds will have far less heating effect than other flux level pulses lasting longer. Calculations matter. And, yes, I used to do these calculations when I was refuting Kosta Tsipis' calculations of the late 70s. Fluence matters.) --Tim May The sun produces shitloads ( check your CRC Handbook for conversions between the shitload and more familiar units ) of power : http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/sol.html says 386 billion billion megawatts If we know the spectral characteristics of the sun ( the black body spectrum perhaps? ) we could come up with a photon count. I'm not sure whether you mean to talk about photon counts and adjust the power and wavelength variables or you really mean to discuss something that operates somewhere between IR and UV. Let's assume the latter. It is after all a LASER. You did say surface of the sun. To me that means integrate over 4 pi. 3.86E26 W regardless of the radius. I doubt if anyone has made a laser that operates at that power level even for one fs. Let's try the other approach... The power output from the sun is about 1350 W/m^2 as measured here. Maybe that was what you meant as a reference power level. Let's see, 1350 W/m^2 - 1.35E-3 W/mm^2 so a 1 mW laser with a beam area of .74mm^2 is as bright as the sun at least in terms of gross energy density. That disregards spectral effects. Not too tough to be brighter than the sun. I don't think you could even light a bucket of gasoline 1 m away with it no less knock down a rocket. It's also pretty easy to handle with a basic mirror. I'd say that's a pretty wussy power level for something that needs to melt a rocket in flight. Focussed to a spot that is 1/1000 the area of the parent beam it starts to get interesting but let's see you hold that spot steady from a 747 in turbulence long enough to burn a hole in a nice shiny casing going 8000kph 200km away. So if we're going to discuss physics let's do it with a bit of care. Maybe it will be more interesting. I'm no expert but I'm willing to try. Yawn, Mike
Kallstrom
Did an interview for Time Digital 2 or 3 years ago. Just threw my copy away. Equated limits on the effectiveness of domestic crypto with speed limits. Pretty much spewed the party line. Had quit to work for a bank. google it : james kallstrom fbi cryptography http://www.inet-one.com/cypherpunks/dir.98.07.13-98.07.19/msg00018.html
Re: Attention to detail lacking
Tim, I think the reflected beam has the same wavelength as the incident beam. Photons hitting a surface most definitely do not lose some energy and get re-emitted. There are some very particular configurations that can act as wavelength doublers, but this is a particular, and hard to set up, configuration. Photons hitting a mirror either are re-emitted with the same energy as before or interact via the photoelectric effect and are thermalized (converted to phonons). That colors are preserved in mirrors, absent tints (special absorbers), is a Physics 1 clue that mirrors do not downshift photon energies!. The reason for the weak statement I think is that I imagine you might make an argument that the momentum transfer from the photon to the mirror results in a very small doppler shift...I'm just not positive about it at the smallest level of interaction. I think Choate is much like this tech of mine: lacking a solid grounding and overly reliant on his own private notions of what mass and energy and group velocity and so on are. All the best cranks view the world this way. I don't know Choate's educational background, but I would not be at all surprised if he is self-taught and moved into computers out of some technician training school. I've reached the same conclusion. I've known some very bright people who lacked access to a formal education. The results were some startling levels of understanding mixed right in with some mind blowing misconceptions and some outright gaps. Mike
Big Brother the toilet troll
Um, what would the price premium be for a toilet that operates as a stoolie? 10X? 20X? Don't hold your breath waiting for it to become a standard. Ever seen the commodes in Japan with all sorts of knobs and switches? Reminds me of a joke I heard about same long ago. Rather than take serious risks leave the bells and whistles alone and use the compatibility mode. Poop jokes on CP. Jeesh. Mike
Who can tax a satellite?
Auerbach insisted that he was not pushing for a tax on the satellites but was simply doing his job and trying to determine whether they should be taxed. ``I'm neutral on the whole thing,'' he said. ``My job is to make sure all property that's taxable gets assessed and I'm going to follow the law. If the law says its not taxable it's not taxable. If it is taxable I will assess it.'' I suppose, as with any racket, whoever has the ability to knock the satellites down or render them inoperable could levy a tax on them.
Re: Who can tax a satellite?
The power to destroy is the power to tax. Did I get that backwards? I'm sorry. The power to tax is the power to destroy. I suppose it makes no difference. It's a statement of equivalence rather than implication. Nothing neutral about it, is there? Black Unicorn wrote: No, the real question is who can knock down or render inoperable the OWNER of the satellite. They're first cousins, I suppose. - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2001 8:58 AM Subject: Who can tax a satellite? ``I'm neutral on the whole thing,'' he said. ``My job is to make sure all property that's taxable gets assessed and I'm going to follow the law. If the law says its not taxable it's not taxable. If it is taxable I will assess it.'' I suppose, as with any racket, whoever has the ability to knock the satellites down or render them inoperable could levy a tax on them.
Re: why roasting Condit's weenie is delicious -watching the watchers
Gee who would've guessed he'd be a hypocrite? It never ceases to amaze me how the religions and their followers have convinced themselves and plenty of others that religion is the source of ethical thought, that they are the originators and keepers of the principles that arguably help people live together in groups. They're mere adopters and plagiarists and not for altruistic purposes either. from http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/iprs/20010711/cm/ten_commandments_sponsor_finds_demons_chasing_him_1.html Clearly Condit was declaiming against his own demons when he co-sponsored legislation calling for displaying the Ten Commandments in public buildings. How easy it is to forget the admonishment against adultery when it is not prominently posted at every turn in the Capitol. The argument typically advanced in support of the government's dabbling in religion is that the constitutional mandate of a separation of church and state erodes the power of religious truths and leads inevitably to a liberal, secular and amoral society. How then is one to explain Condit, who has been an evangelical Christian all his life? There's nothing liberal or secular about him. He's a strong pro-life, family values, Bible-quoting son of a Baptist minister who is rated highly by the Christian Coalition and flunks out with the ACLU. ... No more pearly white smile for photogs but the power haircut will look good when he does the perp walk in orange.
Satellite taxes
Um, wouldn't a natural way to assess property taxes be to first decide in which jurisdiction the property rests? For instance project the boundary of jurisdictions into space from the geometrical center of the earth. In which case it would probably be Brazil that should be collecting the taxes and Hughes would be writing off the taxes as a cost thereby reducing the taxes collected in California. Look for the locations over international waters to get crowded. And what about the surveillance satellites or Russian television satellites with polar orbits? Should we set up manned toll booths to exact a fee and do the agricultural inspection as they pass the projected borders? Or should we say that the jurisdiction is that from which the property was launched? BTW where do they launch these things from? Just another useless publicity hound. I hope the idea gets permanently mired in the courts.
Re: TV as an indicator...
I remember seeing the Nazi agitprop films during anthropology classes in college. I'm not saying that modern TV is particularly splendid. But at the producers are capitalists trying to maximize ratings (and sex and insults may do that), not murderous government officials trying to justify mass extinction. -Declan yup, $ not gas, but it is not necessarily wrong to be looking for subtle themes that might inadvertently disclose a deeper illness. On Mon, Jul 09, 2001 at 09:20:32AM -0700, Ray Dillinger wrote: I turned on a television set last night, for the first time in many months. I was watching videotapes, but I caught fragments of shows while tapes were rewinding, etc. [snip] First, the people are conditioned to accept harsh reality, survival of the fittest, etc. Second, the people are conditioned to accept that, these things being inevitable, hurrying them along is a virtue. Third, some class of people are identified as being inferior and pseudoscience upholding the claim is advanced. The shows I saw last night were deep into the second stage, and universal public monitoring is now more pervasive here than it was then and there, and our schools are raising a generation of people who think monitoring and draconian weapons laws are normal, and ideas not politically correct are being persecuted as vigorously here as they were in Nazi Germany. The parallels continue... The new media must be controlled of that era was radio and television -- now it's the internet. Same basic debates going on -- most of the same outcomes happening. I am scared. Bear Maybe these things exist as undercurrents in all societies and occasionally they swirl a bit, setting loose a bit of swamp gas. Sometimes the whole pond turns over bringing all sorts of stinking muck to the surface. Maybe it's disturbing to recognize these undercurrents in the smiling, happy place you call home but they've been there all along. Mike
Re: Idea for tamper-resistant PC hardware
I guess if your critical server is simply some sort of service provider and the only data requiring security are the operating keys then your hostile location is OK since rebuilding a system and restoring a few keys ( which can be hidden just about anywhere ) is easily done. Otherwise the loss of the data could be costly. If your data is static then it would be relatively easy to stash a copy somewhere. If your data is dynamic then backups are necessary. Backups can be tracked to their resting place. So their location needs to be ( physically and legally ) secure from the threat(s). Unless you can readily hand carry the backups to the secure storage area it will need to be connected in which case you might as well locate your server there in the first place.
Jim on EM
Jim, I remember that whole Faraday cage discussion - it was painful. When it comes to EM you're really off in the tall grass. Mike
Electric Kettles
Great Topic! Steve Mynott wrote: Ken Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On a tangent a friend claimed Americans didn't have electric kettles for boiling water. Can anyone confirm whether this is true? I have never seen an electric kettle for boiling water for tea. Why boil water for tea on a stove or in an electric "kettle" when you can put a mug of water in the microwave and have it on the verge of boiling in 60 seconds? Probably uses less energy too. Tea you can pick in your back yard. Mike
